French, Peasant in Holiday Attire, from Types of Nationalities (N240) issued by Kinney Bros. 1890

This chromolithograph, created by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, presents a figure embodying "French" identity. Note the carefully cultivated mustache and beard, symbols of virility and sophistication that evoke a sense of national pride. Consider the cigarette he holds, a "Sweet Caporal," offered almost as a gesture of national hospitality. Smoking, historically loaded with social meaning, speaks here to leisure and indulgence. Think of the shared ritual of smoking in different contexts – from peace pipes among indigenous cultures to the cigarette breaks of modern laborers. The symbolic language evolves: what was once a sign of exoticism becomes commonplace. In this image, smoking becomes entangled with notions of French identity, a fleeting moment captured and immortalized, but also endlessly reinterpreted. In our collective memory, smoking may now evoke nostalgia or even unease, illustrating the shifting sands of symbolic meaning.