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

Curator: This is a photograph of Tennye Poole, an actress, originally issued around 1890 by the Kinney Brothers to promote their Sweet Caporal Cigarettes. Part of a larger series, it straddles the line between commercial product and portraiture, using popular figures to sell tobacco. Editor: The instant vibe? Slightly haunting, a little melancholic. The soft sepia tones, her faintly weary eyes... it whispers tales of backstage drama and maybe a touch of smoke-filled rooms. Curator: Interesting, because when we look at these commercial portrait cards, what's often absent is any direct information about Poole herself. It highlights how labor and performance—the "actress" identity—were being packaged and sold right alongside cigarettes. What do we really consume here, then? Entertainment? An aspirational lifestyle? Or the very idea of fame? Editor: All tangled up, isn’t it? I keep circling back to her gaze. There's an unnerving quality to it, as if she’s hyper-aware she's being commodified. Did she have any say? How did this campaign affect her sense of self? Those old portraits have so much to teach us. Curator: Exactly. Think about the process too, from staged photographs to mass-produced prints, distributed through packs of cigarettes. That interplay, a blurry line of what we designate high art and popular commodity, demands we reconsider hierarchies of value. Plus the physical thing itself —a disposable commercial token made precious by age, archiving, a strange journey really. Editor: A tiny, faded monument to fleeting fame. I appreciate how a mass produced image prompts questions about labor, agency, consumption—making the viewer aware that their gaze also enters the historical process somehow. It’s more layered than a pretty face. Curator: Agreed. Hopefully, our audience sees past the nostalgic sepia, sees both image and artifact. Editor: Leaving them pondering what stories still linger within its fibers!