Wishing You a Happy New Year, from the New Years 1890 series (N227) issued by Kinney Bros. 1889 - 1890

This New Year greeting card was created around 1890 by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company. It's a chromolithograph, notable for its detailed, layered printing process. The composition is structured around the contrast between the left and right sides. On the left, a young girl sits, holding a string attached to a globe; to the right, the space is predominantly empty. The girl, with her dress marked '1890', represents the new year. But it is the globe that captures our attention: an emblem of worldly hopes and aspirations, rendered diminutive and childlike, it is tethered to the figure of the new year. Consider the semiotic implications here. The globe may signify interconnectedness, or perhaps global ambition; the emptiness on the right allows the viewer to project their own hopes and expectations for the coming year. This blank space can be seen as a field for subjective meaning. The image invites us to reflect on how cultural symbols shape our perceptions of time, aspiration, and the future itself.