Cyrus Hall McCormick, printer's sample for the World's Inventors souvenir album (A25) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes

Art Historical Context

This petite chromolithograph, produced in 1888 by the Allen & Ginter cigarette company, captures inventor Cyrus Hall McCormick as part of their "World's Inventors" souvenir album series (A25). Measuring just 2¾ x 1½ inches, it's a printer's sample—a proof used to perfect the vibrant colors and fine details before mass production. Housed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department from the Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, it exemplifies ephemera: everyday printed items that offer a window into Victorian-era culture. Allen & Ginter pioneered trade cards, inserting these collectible portraits into cigarette packs to boost brand loyalty and appeal to a growing fascination with innovation during America's Gilded Age. McCormick, celebrated here for his groundbreaking mechanical reaper patented in 1834, symbolized agricultural progress that fueled the Industrial Revolution. The portrait's straightforward style highlights his dignified profile against a simple background, making heroism accessible. Chromolithography, the medium's hallmark, allowed for vivid, inexpensive color printing on a massive scale, transforming advertising into an art form. Though humble in scale, this sample reveals how commerce intertwined with celebrity and progress, inviting collectors to albumize history one inventor at a time.

About the Artist

Allen & Ginter

Allen & Ginter, the pioneering American tobacco firm based in Richmond, Virginia, emerged around 1880 from the partnership of John F. Allen and Lewis Ginter, evolving from Allen's earlier John F. Allen & Company. Allen retired in 1882, succeeded by John Pope, yet the brand endured under Ginter's leadership, employing over 1,100 workers—mostly women—for hand-rolled cigarettes by 1886. Ginter, a Dut...