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

Curator: This is a trade card from 1890 featuring Laura Burt. It was created by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company as part of their "Actresses" series to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes. Editor: It has a sepia tint which lends to its vintage aura. There’s a stillness, almost a melancholy, evoked by her downward gaze. The composition focuses intensely on her face and upper body, rendered with a delicate photographic precision. Curator: Precisely, but let’s consider the wider picture. These cards circulated in a burgeoning consumer culture where women, particularly actresses like Laura Burt, were both celebrated and commodified. Cigarettes were explicitly marketed through their association with female beauty and allure, normalizing both the product and certain idealized representations of womanhood. Editor: Certainly, but her direct gaze seems almost confrontational. The soft textures of her gown and bonnet are meticulously captured—each fold and lace detail contributes to the overall elegance and refinement of the portrait. It has this captivating quality, though her attire reads almost child-like, doesn't it? Curator: Yes, a contradiction worth unpacking. This ties into questions about the performance of femininity, then, in the 19th century. Actresses occupied a unique, often precarious social position, simultaneously admired and scrutinized. By circulating these images on cigarette cards, the Kinney Brothers were participating in and shaping narratives about women and celebrity, for mass consumption. Editor: And it is this engagement, though promotional, that captures a moment in material culture: her delicate visage offset by bold marketing text, this intersection of portraiture and commerce is striking. There is something fascinatingly delicate about the entire work. Curator: I agree, it provides us with rich entry point into the intertwined histories of consumerism, representation, and gender in late 19th-century America. Editor: It's rewarding to see the way these layers have shaped my initial purely aesthetic reading of this beautiful trade card.