Boyle, Pitcher, Indianapolis, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1887

Editor: Here we have "Boyle, Pitcher, Indianapolis" from the Old Judge series, dating to 1887. It’s a baseball card, a photograph, distributed by Goodwin & Company with their cigarettes. It’s striking how much it resembles a religious icon. What symbols do you see at play in this image? Curator: That's astute. Think of the 'Old Judge' cigarettes branding placed almost like a halo, a secular blessing conferring value. The pitcher, Boyle, is presented as a figure of prowess, perhaps even luck. Consider the repetition of the baseball itself as a near-universal emblem of American identity and pastime; here, a token for national cohesion, particularly poignant during that period of rebuilding after the Civil War. Editor: So the card isn’t just about baseball. It’s about larger cultural ideas? Curator: Precisely. Baseball’s rise mirrored the rise of industrial America; the very act of collecting such cards allowed citizens to enact a kind of symbolic mastery over this booming landscape. The player becomes a collectable ‘saint’, if you will. Editor: The player as saint—an interesting take. So the advertisers tapped into existing cultural modes of devotion. Are there also psychological factors in play? Curator: Definitely. Mass-produced images such as this allowed a sort of communal daydreaming to emerge; think about it – baseball connects across class lines in ways that much art did not, forming bonds in a rapidly stratifying society. Even the sepia tone evokes nostalgia for a simpler, idealized past. Editor: It's interesting to see how the intersection of advertising, sport, and image creation was already highly sophisticated even in the late 19th century. I hadn’t thought about that. Curator: These kinds of mass-produced images can reveal a lot about a society's aspirations and anxieties. Understanding their symbolism gives us invaluable insight.