Door Keeper, from the Occupations of Women series (N502) for Frishmuth's Tobacco Company 1889

This small card, part of Frishmuth's Tobacco Company's "Occupations of Women" series, would have been printed using lithography, a process that allowed for mass production and vibrant colors. The image depicts a woman costumed as a "Door Keeper," rendered with careful attention to detail despite the card's small size. The textures, from the fur trim to the decorative staff, are all captured through the printing process. These cards were essentially advertisements, leveraging popular fascination with women's roles in society to sell tobacco products. The act of mass-producing images like these, distributing them widely, speaks to the burgeoning consumer culture of the time. Consider the labor involved, from the artists who designed the image to the factory workers who printed and packaged them. These cards weren't high art, but they reflect significant shifts in production, consumption, and social attitudes, blurring the lines between commerce and culture.