CIGAR BOX LITHOGRAPHS

Humber, in his latest series installment, surveys the representation of women in historic cigar-box lithographs.

During the second half of the 19th century, men all over America regularly smoked cigars. It’s no surprise, then, that the lithographs that adorned their wooden cigar boxes were a staple of late-19th- and early-20th-century popular culture. As demonstrated in past entries in the author’s multivolume exploration of this phenomenon, the images sought to draw customers in with myriad artistic styles and, often, depictions of famous historical figures. This final volume of the series effectively demonstrates that “for every Mark Twain or Abraham Lincoln cigar box…there were competing cigar containers displaying seductive women.” Yet, while many of these sexualized displays featured anonymous subjects in revealing burlesque attire, there were others that celebrated the historic impact of specific women on American and world history. This book highlights about 90 of those lithographs with full-color images that adorn every page, providing context and commentary not only on the cigar art itself, but also on the lives of the historical figures they portrayed. Well-known women who adorned cigar boxes during this period included writer and activist Helen Keller, nurses Clara Barton and Dorothy Dix, and seamstress Betsy Ross. Two of the most collectible cigar boxes of the era, Humber informatively points out, featured Shakespearean actress Julia Marlowe and Joan of Arc. The book inclusively offers many depictions of women of color, but its historical commentary can sometimes feel pollyannish. For instance, when discussing an image on Claro-Maduro cigars from the 1890s that featured two young girls (one Black, one white), the book speculates that the image represents “an optimistic future where one’s skin color, no matter what generation, is not at all a contentious matter.” However, this interpretation belies the frequent, if paradoxical, depictions of harmony between Black and white children by white artists who were in favor of slavery and segregation, dating back to the antebellum period.

A beautifully designed, if sometimes historically simplified, overview of a very specific type of advertising representation.