May Walden, from the Actors and Actresses series (N171) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1886 - 1890

Curator: This albumen print, dating from 1886-1890, presents May Walden from the "Actors and Actresses" series (N171), created by Goodwin & Company for Old Judge Cigarettes. The print resides at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: My first impression is that the composition, while conventional for a trade card, possesses a somber, almost melancholic mood. Her contemplative pose contrasts with the clear intent to market a product, generating an unusual tension. Curator: Indeed, the performative element is key. We see her as an actress in a theatrical role, a costume replete with lace. She assumes a typical thinking pose with finger to the lips as she holds the piece of paper as if waiting to deliver her lines. What does it symbolize, this deliberate choice of an actress to sell a product? Editor: I wonder if the use of actresses spoke to notions of aspiration. Were they using their images as bait? It makes me consider what kind of women were consuming cigarettes, were they actresses themselves? To a modern sensibility, it reads as quite insidious—profiting from figures who may not have even consented to such endorsements. Curator: Certainly. In advertising, associating an aspirational figure, like an actress, with a product projects qualities onto the consumer, right? Smoking "Old Judge Cigarettes" might offer a vicarious participation in her theatrical world. Think of cigarettes as offering momentary self-performance. Editor: But also, given the object's size and distribution, it operates as a token. What would it have meant for someone to carry May Walden's picture around? We should also reflect that cigarettes are an oral fixation--she stands with finger to mouth promoting just that. Curator: Precisely. And while the original photographic portrait has a specific referent—the actual May Walden—it becomes refigured through the print. Transmuted to encourage memory, and maybe aspiration, around "Old Judge Cigarettes," just as her role-playing is integral to theatrical performance. Editor: Right, it also feels poignant looking back through the present, knowing that smoking had a different context back then. Looking at her today, a woman caught in the gears of commerce, elicits a certain melancholic feeling of the human experience getting reduced to pure utility. Curator: In short, an actress becomes an icon for commerce. It speaks volumes, doesn’t it? Editor: Yes. The layers of performance are really thought-provoking here.