Nellie McHenry, from the Actresses series (N245) issued by Kinney Brothers to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes 1890

This is a promotional card, likely from the 1880s, produced by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, featuring the actress Nellie McHenry. The card was inserted into packets of Sweet Caporal Cigarettes. These cards were immensely popular, and their imagery tells us a lot about the period. The image creates meaning through several visual and cultural codes. The theatrical pose, the elaborate costume, and the very fact of her being a celebrated actress would have spoken to a growing public fascination with celebrity culture. In America at this time, we see the rise of mass media, with commercial imagery playing an important role. But who was included, and who was excluded, from this visual landscape? The historian can use resources like trade catalogues, census records, and theater archives to understand the complex relationships between commerce, representation, and the making of celebrity in the late 19th century. Studying an image like this, we can see how the history of art is always contingent on social and institutional context.