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

Curator: Let's turn our attention to this curious piece, "Lea Peasley, from the Actresses series (N245)" created in 1890 by Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company. It's part of their series issued to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes. Editor: It feels so...delicate, almost faded with time. There's a softness to it, but also a sense of constructed artifice with that carefully arranged rustic fence. What does this reveal? Curator: It’s fascinating how mass media adopted art's language. These trade cards, effectively advertisements, became collectible objects in themselves, revealing a democratized public consumption of art tied directly to commodity culture. They put images, previously restricted, in wide circulation. Editor: Yes, but who got to be represented and how? Lea Peasley here seems styled to be both accessible and alluring – the slightly undone tie, the knowing glance... This brings to mind the objectification of women prevalent then and how that commodification extends to advertising and visual culture. What stories were overlooked and suppressed by this pervasive imagery? Curator: Precisely. This image of Peasley can be read through a critical lens, examining her representation, the male gaze, and the way performative labor – her work as an actress – intersects with industrial promotion. Yet, in another reading, perhaps she wielded her visibility in some way. Editor: It's not a passive pose, is it? She's using the context – the constructed rural scene – almost to push a persona of wholesomeness that clashes interestingly with her theatrical identity and, of course, its tie to tobacco consumption. This tension says a lot about the complexity of image-making, identity, and consumer culture at that time. Curator: Absolutely. By the end of the 19th century the media marketplace grew more vibrant. Consider that an actress would be pictured promoting a consumer product this way says a great deal about changing gender roles and burgeoning entertainment spheres. Editor: Considering its function as an advert as well as how Lea Peasley navigates that image, makes me think differently about images of femininity in consumer culture today. The past feels less distant now. Curator: Yes, what’s remarkable here is how a seemingly simple promotional tool from over a century ago continues to provoke dialogue and challenges the narratives that surround it.