From the Girls and Children series (N64) promoting Virginia Brights Cigarettes for Allen & Ginter brand tobacco products 1886

Curator: The color palette here is immediately striking. Editor: Absolutely. We’re looking at an 1886 watercolor and print from the "Girls and Children series" promoting Virginia Brights Cigarettes, part of Allen & Ginter's tobacco products. Two young girls are featured, seemingly out for a stroll. Curator: It’s unsettling to see children used this way, to promote smoking, given what we know about public health now. I am immediately concerned by the normalization of tobacco consumption at such a vulnerable age and wonder how those societal structures supported that messaging. Editor: The girls themselves, though, are adorned in clothing bursting with floral motifs. Umbrellas become status symbols, sheltering them not just from weather, perhaps, but from realities too harsh. I'm drawn to that yellow umbrella especially; such radiant joy seems to contrast quite ironically with what they are promoting. Curator: Consider the history: in 1886, childhood innocence was already a constructed narrative, intertwined with notions of class and respectability. The print speaks to that performance, where young girls were tools in promoting particular brand ideals. It certainly makes one question agency. Editor: Visually, it taps into something deeper too. The choice of flowers. Their language speaks of seasons, change, fragility. The way flowers have historically signaled delicate states within human conditions gives me chills considering they are promoting something that destroys life. What symbols are hidden within those blooms, deliberately or unconsciously set to mislead or perhaps reveal something dark in the future for those looking now? Curator: Exactly. The symbolism employed attempts to obscure those contradictions through pretty distractions of girlhood. Allen & Ginter were definitely speaking to potential buyers' aspirations of success, and projecting what “healthy” habits are like – through its visual strategies of adorning cigarette packages with imagery far divorced from actual experience. Editor: These small images encapsulate how commerce intersects with our evolving ideals. I feel we've both brought new awareness to that conversation. Curator: Precisely. There's still much to decode within these remnants.