James Francis "Pud" Galvin, Pitcher, Pittsburgh, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1887

Curator: Here we have a collotype from 1887 entitled "James Francis 'Pud' Galvin, Pitcher, Pittsburgh, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes." Goodwin & Company created it as part of a larger advertising campaign. Editor: I love the sepia tones; there's a stillness to it, a real sense of bygone days. The baseball bat looks almost like a walking stick, so polite! Curator: The collotype printing process allowed for mass production and distribution. Images like these were essentially trade cards packaged with cigarettes, incentivizing collection and, of course, consumption of the tobacco products themselves. Editor: It's wild to think about smoking and baseball being so tightly linked in popular culture. Looking at the portrait, Galvin's pose with his hand on his hip...he just looks like he owns the diamond. And the little tie knot he's wearing--so dignified for the ballfield! Curator: Exactly. We see a deliberate construction of the athlete's image for consumption and commercial gain. His attire--the jacket over the uniform--contributes to this air of respectability, associating the baseball player with middle-class values to market not only Galvin, but the cigarettes themselves. The material composition, thin paper, reinforces its consumable, throwaway nature. Editor: I never think about the smallness of things like this, but now all I see is a symbol of our brief lives on this Earth. Even the corner is curling with a history you can almost smell...faintly smoky, of course! Curator: In short, these weren’t meant to be displayed in museums, but in pockets or discarded after use. The ephemerality is key. Editor: Still, someone cared enough to save it and now here it is for us to ponder. Funny, isn't it? Curator: Indeed. And to think about all of the labor involved to bring these materials to market--to manufacture the photographs and baseball, to grow the tobacco, to run the presses. Editor: I am always drawn in when old materials remind me to really slow down and consider the bigger picture!