Nettie Kimball, from the Actors and Actresses series (N45, Type 1) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes 1885 - 1891

This is an advertisement card for Virginia Brights Cigarettes, printed by Allen and Ginter. It depicts the actress Nettie Kimball, along with a fashionable pug. The card, a mass-produced object, speaks volumes about the commodification of culture and celebrity in the late 19th century. Printed on thin card stock using relatively advanced lithographic techniques for the time, the image is part of a series that trades on Kimball’s fame, associating her image with the Virginia Brights brand. This tiny card participated in a much wider circulation of images, fueled by an increasingly consumerist culture and the machinery of industrial production. We might consider this card a kind of proto-Instagram, a readily available image divorced from any deeper understanding of Nettie Kimball as a person. The card also points to the labor involved, from the factory workers churning out these cards, to the tobacco farmers, to Nettie Kimball herself, whose job involved embodying an ideal of beauty and aspiration. In the end, this seemingly simple card is a powerful artifact, reflecting the complex interplay of fame, commerce, and labor in a rapidly changing world.