Card 37, from the Girl Cyclists series (N49) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes 1887

Curator: Here we have a trading card from the 1887 series “Girl Cyclists,” produced by Allen & Ginter for Virginia Brights Cigarettes, presently residing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It depicts a woman confidently riding a high-wheeled bicycle. Editor: The first thing that strikes me is the audacity. A woman so unapologetically claiming public space in a period so fraught with constraints? It’s instantly empowering. Curator: These cards were hugely popular as collectibles, enclosed in cigarette packs. While seemingly innocuous, they offer a fascinating snapshot into societal attitudes about women and sport at the time. Bicycling granted women unprecedented mobility and independence. Editor: Precisely! Think of the garment reform required. Away with the corsets, the long skirts! Cycling becomes a vehicle—literal and figurative—for challenging gender norms. The fact that a tobacco company is distributing these images adds another layer. Curator: Absolutely. The commodification of this “New Woman” served commercial interests, yes, but also contributed to a wider dissemination and, arguably, acceptance of evolving roles. The idealized image softens what was, at the time, seen as scandalous. Editor: Scandalous maybe for the elite. But among working-class women, that freedom meant increased work and business opportunities, further dissolving oppressive standards of middle- and upper-class domesticity. Curator: Indeed. While mass culture tends to dilute the revolutionary power of these types of figures and imagery, they often served as symbols to champion, even if briefly. There's certainly a performative aspect at play; women in this era still were performing the ideal as the New Woman, not quite a natural reality at the time, necessarily. Editor: And how powerful for working girls to then see this projected so widely, distributed even through everyday purchases like cigarette packs. It’s a complex dance between corporate capitalization and real cultural impact. Curator: It's definitely something to consider when we examine artifacts like these. The rise of bicycling had transformative implications for late 19th century social order. Editor: Agreed. I'll think about that again now—how even these simple images serve as points for re-evaluation and challenge how we see these power dynamics in the art of that era.