Card 762, from the Actors and Actresses series (N45, Type 2) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes 1885 - 1891

This card, number 762 in a series by Allen & Ginter, was produced in the United States as a promotional item for Virginia Brights Cigarettes. Here, a young actress poses in costume: her jaunty cap and bloomers hint at a playful theatrical role. These cards, popular in the late 19th century, offer us a glimpse into the burgeoning world of commercial culture, where entertainment and advertising began to intertwine. The rise of mass media created new opportunities for performers, and the cards allowed fans to collect images of their favorite stars. What’s more, the Virginia Brights company was able to leverage the glamour of the stage to sell its product. To fully understand this image, we need to explore the social history of advertising and entertainment in the late 1800s. By consulting archives of magazines and advertisements, alongside theater programs and celebrity biographies, we can reconstruct the cultural context in which this image was created and consumed. What we see in the image depends on the wider cultural frameworks.