Ford, New York, American League, from the White Border series (T206) for the American Tobacco Company 1909 - 1911

Curator: So, here we have "Ford, New York, American League" part of the White Border series made for the American Tobacco Company sometime between 1909 and 1911. It’s currently held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: First thought? He looks like he's about to give me some seriously devastating news. Is that melodrama, or is it the muted palette and the slight downturn of his mouth? I feel a poem brewing... Curator: Perhaps! But consider this as a product of its time. The American Tobacco Company used these cards as a marketing tool, specifically targeting a male demographic through sport, and even more specifically, baseball. We should note the intersectionality of sport, capitalism, and national identity construction occurring at this time. Editor: So it’s all about manufactured virility, then? That earnest, if slightly grumpy, gaze promising the strength to hit a homer after puffing on a Lucky Strike? Still, there's something sweetly amateurish about it. The kind of illustration you’d find on a well-loved cereal box. Curator: There is an interesting tension there between commerce and art. We should examine how popular culture, such as baseball, intersected with mass marketing techniques to both reflect and shape social values of the era. How was masculinity being performed? Who was being excluded from the narrative? Editor: And who *wasn’t* excluded from nicotine addiction, right? Jokes aside, that muted green in the background feels utterly of its time. And the sort of blurred stadium lends a dreamlike quality. Almost like a memory, tinged with sepia tones. Curator: Exactly! This image wasn't just about selling tobacco. It participated in crafting an idealized vision of American identity, connected to notions of health, athleticism, and patriotism, although of course, such associations mask underlying tensions and power dynamics rooted in class, race, and gender. Editor: So behind this unassuming baseball card is a complex web of aspiration, commerce, and good old American...tobacco. Curator: Precisely! Examining it offers a window into understanding the complex ideologies underpinning American consumer culture at the beginning of the 20th century. Editor: Well, I for one, am now craving bubblegum and a philosophical debate on the nature of heroes.