Card Number 219, Floy Crowell, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-7) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Duke Cigarettes 1880s

Curator: Ah, look, here we have card number 219 in the "Actors and Actresses" series produced by W. Duke, Sons & Co. sometime in the 1880s to promote Duke Cigarettes. It features a photograph of Floy Crowell. Editor: My initial reaction is… well, it's so sepia-toned and delicate! The image has a soft, almost dreamlike quality. The material production of such a disposable artifact to promote something as mundane as cigarettes... fascinating! Curator: The photographic print gives us a peek into the celebrity culture of the late 19th century. Though these were mass-produced as advertisements, they also represent the widespread dissemination of portraiture. It reminds us how image culture functioned before modern mass media. I feel an odd connection to her. Editor: Indeed, the interplay of photography, printing, and commerce created a fascinating circuit. These cards, distributed with cigarette packs, highlight how images became both intimate collectibles and powerful marketing tools. And you can practically smell the tobacco! Curator: It’s true. I think it’s easy to overlook these objects because we now live in a world so saturated with images. But imagine being alive then, how special such portraits were! Her face—she is inviting and playful, don’t you think? And I'm strangely drawn to the draped fabric. It obscures her legs so thoroughly— Editor: Yes! Look closely at the drape and details; a mass-produced print would require accessible, cost-effective methods—what kinds of shortcuts or material choices did they use to get a good result while keeping costs low? The contrast between Floy's lace and jewelry, her ornate dress, against the promotional text makes this seem tawdry in an elegant kind of way. Curator: I see her almost like a pre-Raphaelite muse, a delicate beauty preserved in sepia. Maybe she never anticipated she would become part of a consumer campaign! Editor: And this photograph reminds us of a much larger material reality; cheap tobacco picked and processed by anonymous workers who most likely never had a hope of experiencing a night at the theater or the sort of ephemeral fame of Floy Crowell. Curator: This gives you a pause to consider how fame has always been intrinsically tied to commercial interests—how actors’ images were already commodities back in the day. It's oddly poignant. Editor: It really encapsulates that push and pull, doesn't it? The glitter and grime of late 19th century capitalist production all wrapped up in a small, mass-produced package.