Colonel A. A. Pope, printer's sample for the World's Inventors souvenir album (A25) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes 1888

This printer's sample of Colonel A.A. Pope, part of the World's Inventors souvenir album, was made by Allen & Ginter Cigarettes. Printed ephemera like this speaks volumes about industrial production in the late 19th century. Allen and Ginter mass-produced these cards to be included in cigarette packs; a classic marketing strategy to boost sales. These weren't exactly traditional art materials, but humble paper and ink, transformed through industrial printing processes like lithography. The portrait demonstrates a key feature of mass production: the reduction of skilled labor. An artist probably made an initial design, but the subsequent identical copies relied on machine technology, specifically the printing press. The card represents how everyday items became vehicles for advertising, and how consumer culture relied on the labor of factory workers and the ingenuity of inventors like Colonel Pope himself, famous for his bicycle manufacturing company. Considering its materials and means of production offers a lens into the intertwined histories of commerce, labor, and invention.