Van Haltren, Pitcher, Chicago, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1888

Editor: Here we have "Van Haltren, Pitcher, Chicago" from the Old Judge series, made in 1888 by Goodwin & Company. It’s a collotype, originally a photograph, advertising Old Judge Cigarettes. The sepia tone gives it an antique feel. I’m struck by how this simple image was actually a consumer product. How do you interpret this work, focusing on the tangible aspects of its creation and use? Curator: The material reality of this card is crucial. Think about collotype printing. It allowed for mass production, enabling the distribution of these images on a vast scale within cigarette packs. What does the baseball player symbolize within that context? Editor: I guess he’s a symbol of American athleticism and the aspirational lifestyle being marketed alongside tobacco. The act of collecting and trading these cards became a form of consumption in itself, fueled by this industrial printing. Curator: Exactly. The material—the card itself, the ink, the paper—facilitated the commodification of baseball, of Van Haltren’s image. How do you see the labor involved in producing and consuming this object? Editor: On one hand, there's the labor of the photographer, the printers, and the factory workers assembling the cigarettes and packaging. On the other, there's the consumer's labor – their wages exchanged for a product and an image promising a certain kind of identity or status. Curator: Precisely! This intertwining of labor and materiality highlights the social forces at play during that time. We are invited to think of labor conditions and industrial scale to truly understand the cultural power such image holds. Editor: That's a fantastic way of seeing how the image's inherent meaning is shaped by its existence as a commodity. It shifts my perception of what’s actually happening in the photograph. Thanks.