Card 934, Mary Anderson, from the Actors and Actresses series (N45, Type 2) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes 1885 - 1891

This is a trade card of Mary Anderson, the celebrated American actress, made around 1888 by Allen & Ginter for Virginia Brights Cigarettes. These cards were enormously popular, collected and traded by both adults and children. Allen & Ginter produced many series, including birds, flags, and sports figures. But the ‘Actors and Actresses’ series reveals a particular cultural moment in the United States. Photography was becoming widespread, as were celebrity endorsements. This was also the Gilded Age: a time of rapid industrialization, vast wealth, and growing social inequality. The image of Mary Anderson connects to this context in interesting ways. Portraits of actors and actresses helped to create a culture of fame. It also democratized the arts by making images of high-status performers available to a wider public. By looking into company records and popular periodicals, we can learn more about how these images reflected and shaped American society. The meaning of art like this is contingent on social and institutional context.