Card Number 149, Annie Robe, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-2) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes 1880s

Curator: Let's take a look at this trade card from the 1880s by W. Duke, Sons & Co., specifically Card Number 149 in the Actors and Actresses series. It was created as advertising for Cross Cut Cigarettes. The titular figure in this print is Annie Robe. Editor: There's such a stillness to this portrait! I can't help but feel the melancholic beauty of the woman’s bowed head. It gives a dreamy feel, yet there's something subtly alluring, maybe seductive about it as well. Curator: Indeed. These cards, often employing photographic or etched portraiture, were strategically included in cigarette packs. They operated within a burgeoning culture of mass consumption, effectively turning actors like Annie Robe into commodities themselves, objects of desire linked inextricably with tobacco. The commercial act of smoking becomes tied to glamour, luxury, and aspirational identity. Editor: Absolutely. Thinking about the actress in this trade card makes me feel she's somewhat entrapped by this world, gazing out—or, perhaps, inward—and there’s such subtle defiance on display with her hands clasped right on top of the advertising as if she were silencing that voice that tries to commodify her beauty! Curator: This also suggests how photography and printing enabled the proliferation of celebrity images. The card served a dual purpose: it promoted the product and it simultaneously democratized access to the faces of prominent entertainers, contributing to early formations of celebrity culture and fandom. Editor: It's interesting to observe how this simple little rectangle of advertising does much more than promote cigarettes; it captures this pivotal shift when celebrity became a sellable commodity, a fragmentable thing reproducible on cardstock and collectible with a strange sort of intimacy, all under the veneer of consumerism. Curator: It underscores that the "best" was not just the cigarette, but also the fantasy peddled alongside it. Thank you. Editor: Thank you. An exquisite meditation on consumerism!