Closed on Sunday, from the Magic Changing Cards series (N223) issued by Kinney Tobacco Company 1889

This unassuming card, printed by the Kinney Tobacco Company, presents us with a closed door, barring entry to a 'Wines & Liquors' establishment on a Sunday. This simple scene encapsulates a societal tension—the conflict between leisure and commerce, sacred and profane. Consider the closed door itself. Throughout history, doors have symbolized transitions, passages between worlds, and the liminal space between what is known and unknown. In ancient Egypt, doorways were adorned with symbols to protect the threshold. Here, the closed door, reinforced by the stern 'No Admittance', evokes not just physical exclusion but a denial of earthly pleasures, reflecting deeply ingrained cultural attitudes towards the Sabbath. But the card also hints at something beyond the surface. The instruction to ‘Hold to the light’ suggests a hidden image, a revelation concealed beneath the mundane. This act of uncovering echoes our own quest to find meaning beyond the literal, to illuminate the cultural anxieties and moral debates embedded within a simple image of a closed door. It is a reminder that symbols, like cultural memories, are never truly dormant but waiting to be reactivated, reinterpreted, and imbued with new significance across time.