Private, Cadet Corps, 13th Regiment, National Guard of the State of New York, from the Military Series (N224) issued by Kinney Tobacco Company to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes 1888

This small chromolithograph was produced by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company as a promotional item for Sweet Caporal Cigarettes in the late 19th century. It depicts a member of the Private Cadet Corps of the 13th Regiment of the National Guard of New York. During this period, the National Guard was composed of state-based militias, and service was often seen as a marker of civic duty and social status. These images, distributed with tobacco products, provided a visual compendium of American masculinity, linking military service with consumer culture. The figure's youthfulness and carefully tailored uniform present an idealized vision of military service, one that perhaps obscures the realities of war and the social inequalities of the time. This image offers insight into how identities of patriotism, consumerism, and masculinity were being constructed and circulated in late 19th century America.