Noah Webster, from the series Great Americans (N76) for Duke brand cigarettes 1888

This small chromolithograph of Noah Webster was created around the turn of the 20th century by W. Duke, Sons & Co. It's a printed image, made using industrial techniques and inexpensive materials, designed to be included in packages of Duke brand cigarettes. The portrait and its surrounding details would have been rendered by a skilled draughtsman. The image of Webster is posed next to a volume of his famous dictionary, but more importantly, it's also placed above the words: “W. Duke, Sons & Co., the largest cigarette manufacturer in the world.” The company used images like this to signal status, associating the act of smoking with cultural figures. Mass-produced items like this one can tell us a great deal about the values of their time. This card suggests a link between commerce and intellectual achievement, and the making of this object itself reflects a highly industrialized society, where even knowledge could be commodified.