British, Ioway, from the American Indian Chiefs series (N36) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes 1888

This is a lithograph from a series of cigarette cards, produced by the company Allen & Ginter, depicting an Ioway man named British. These cards were inserted into packs of cigarettes, capitalizing on a craze for collecting them. Made in the United States, at the end of the 19th century, this card participates in a longer history of representing Native Americans, which usually involved misinterpretations and distortions of their cultures, as well as their tokenization. The inclusion of an Ioway man in this set is part of a wider social interest in Native American culture, fuelled by anxieties about their place in the rapidly modernizing America. The pose of the sitter mimics photographic portraiture, but one can't ignore how the commercialization of the image flattens the sitter’s identity. Examining printed ephemera such as trade cards can teach us a lot about the social dynamics of any given time. Historians of art can access information to understand the role of art in society and reveal the social conditions that shape artistic production.