Miss Ruth Stetson, from the Actors and Actresses series (N45, Type 1) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes 1885 - 1891

Curator: This is "Miss Ruth Stetson," a photograph from the Actors and Actresses series produced by Allen & Ginter between 1885 and 1891 as a promotional insert for Virginia Brights Cigarettes. It is currently held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: She has a kind of spectral presence, doesn't she? Almost dreamlike. The sepia tone and soft focus really enhance that ethereal quality. Curator: Exactly! It’s fascinating how such mass-produced ephemera employed sophisticated photographic techniques. The albumen print is mounted on card stock, showcasing a carefully posed studio portrait. Consider the layers of production – from the photographer's studio to the cigarette factory. Editor: Absolutely, let’s think about context. She stands poised between the high art aspirations of portraiture and its entanglement with consumer culture and capitalist desires. I am really thinking about the ways that performance, identity, and the commercial object intersect. Her gaze and slightly scandalous fringe are marketing tools as much as they are an artistic statement. Curator: And what is her labor in that equation? Her performance certainly relies on material labor from the makers of the clothing, set design and tobacco to make her a star of both stage and packaging. The photograph flattens everything into a single commodity form. Editor: Right, the image, both as art and advertising, serves to naturalize an unequal power structure, turning exploitation into aspirational beauty and glamour. It forces the questions: Who profits from these representations, and at whose expense? The workers who processed tobacco leaves in dangerous conditions are left unacknowledged. Curator: It’s the perfect encapsulation of the Gilded Age, where incredible industrial advancement was often subsidized with great exploitation. Allen & Ginter mass produced her image alongside other "types," using these figures to move vast quantities of their cigarettes through their distribution channels. The making and marketing of dreams! Editor: An enduring critique then, of the image, power, and consumerism, packaged and sold alongside an extremely addictive product. I’m going to continue thinking about that tension, that relationship between consumerism and our constructions of the ‘ideal’ image of women in America, which persists even today. Curator: Indeed. I'll reflect on the ways that technology has continued to abstract labor through new forms of production and distribution of images.