Mary Anderson, from the Actresses and Celebrities series (N60, Type 1) promoting Little Beauties Cigarettes for Allen & Ginter brand tobacco products

Art Historical Context

This charming albumen photograph from 1887 captures Mary Anderson, a celebrated American actress known for her Shakespearean roles, as part of Allen & Ginter's Actresses and Celebrities seriesN60, Type 1). Produced by the innovative tobacco company, this tiny card—measuring just 2 3/8 × 1 1/2 inches—was designed to promote Little Beauties Cigarettes Albumen prints, made with egg-white sensitized paper, were prized for their sharp detail and warm tones, making them ideal for mass-produced collectibles tucked into cigarette packs. These trade cards marked a golden age of 19th-century advertising, blending celebrity portraiture with clever marketing. Allen & Ginter pioneered chromolithographed sets, but this early photographic version highlights the era's fascination with theater stars like Anderson, who embodied Victorian ideals of beauty and grace. Distributed widely, they fueled a collecting craze among enthusiasts, offering glimpses into popular culture. Today, housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, this ephemera piece reveals how commerce intertwined with fame, women's rising visibility on stage, and the social allure of smoking—long before health warnings. A delightful window into Gilded Age America!

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...