Nathaniel Hawthorne, from the series Great Americans (N76) for Duke brand cigarettes

Art Historical Context

This vibrant chromolithograph from 1888 features Nathaniel Hawthorne, the renowned American of *The Scarlet Letter*, as part of W. Duke, Sons & Co.'s "Great (N76)" series. Produced as a collectible insert for Duke brand cigarettes, this tiny card—measuring just 2¾ × 1½ inches—was designed for mass appeal, showcasing national heroes to entice smokers and foster brand loyalty. The Jefferson R. Burdick Collection The Metropolitan Museum of Art preserves this ephemera, highlighting everyday artifacts of 19th-century consumer culture. Chromolithography, the medium here, revolutionized commercial printing by layering colors through multiple lithographic stones, yielding rich, affordable reproductions that mimicked paintings. For Duke, a leading tobacco firm, these cards were marketing genius, turning a simple pack into a portable gallery of icons. Hawthorne's stern portrait embodies Romantic literary ideals, yet its commercial reuse underscores how cultural figures were commodified in Gilded Age America. Fun fact: Cigarette cards like this sparked a collecting craze, with kids trading them like modern baseball cards, inadvertently glamorizing tobacco while immortalizing history's greats. A window into Victorian-era advertising savvy!

About the Artist

W. Duke, Sons & Co. · 1870–1920

**W. Duke, Sons & Co.: Pioneers of Chromolithographic Trade Card Art** W. Duke, Sons & Co., an American tobacco manufacturer, emerged from the entrepreneurial vision of Washington Duke (1820–1905) and his sons in Durham, North Carolina. After the Civil War, Washington abandoned farming in 1874 to join his eldest son, Brodie L. Duke, in the burgeoning tobacco trade, establishing a factory that for...