Lynn Mills, Catcher, Milwaukee, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1888

Curator: Here we have a trade card from 1888. It features Lynn Mills, a baseball player from Milwaukee. These cards were originally included in Old Judge Cigarettes packs, produced by Goodwin & Company. Editor: The sepia tone immediately evokes a feeling of nostalgia, of simpler times perhaps, even though I am quite sure life then was anything but simple! He's frozen mid-pitch, giving off a sense of concentrated power, yet contained by the very small dimensions of the print. Curator: Right. The process is interesting. It is photography, but also printmaking, so the cards would have been produced in mass quantities. These were designed to be disposable objects, a part of a capitalist system driving sales through image and celebrity, attached directly to the addictive properties of tobacco. The very stuff we try to keep out of art these days! Editor: It speaks to the era, certainly. Baseball became very popular around that time and started reflecting notions of American identity, sportsmanship and strength and of the ‘common man’ as celebrated heroes in increasingly industrialized societies. He holds the baseball as if he is presenting it to the viewer almost reverentially – think of all the ritualistic elements that define the game. Curator: And the photograph’s setting is important. Note how it seems posed outside, on just some grass – it's both manufactured and trying to appear “authentic” somehow, in a way mirroring baseball's status in the American landscape. The backdrop appears almost like a hastily constructed stage for the player to enact his performance, commodified and consumed via cigarette packaging. Editor: Consider how these images entered the visual lexicon; what baseball player wouldn't want their picture reproduced and circulated so widely? Even the act of collecting baseball cards feels almost ritualistic now, holding them, trading them – imbued with values of rarity and nostalgia. Mills' stern expression contributes to this seriousness, like he is enacting an ancient role, readying a sacred tool. Curator: Exactly. Thinking of the materiality again, mass production via photography, print and cigarette sales all intertwine, a real reflection on labor, consumption and even artistic creation, blurring the line between fine art and product advertisement. It really encapsulates the economic and social forces at play during the rise of baseball and the explosion of print media. Editor: It’s fascinating to consider that his image, tied so closely to consumer culture in its own time, has acquired this layer of historical meaning. We interpret the cultural impact of image and object, while Lynn Mills gazes down at us, preserved.