“The sporting girls” category of cards that are the main focus of this show was distinct from the more popular female series of the time, such as those depicting actresses and beautiful, alluring women, and bearing names such as Parasol Drills and The World’s Beauties. Nonetheless, sportif females were a “viable, even lucrative category,” we learn here.
The exhibit notably displays stand-out images from the famous "Hamilton King Girl" series. Hamilton King (1871-1952) was a prominent illustrator whose work appeared on magazine covers and in advertising. His extra-large, colorful cigarette cards with drawings of fetching females, issued between 1902 and 1913, were used to promote Turkish Trophies Cigarettes and Helmar Cigarettes. The four color lithographs (c. 1913) that are on display at the Luce Center have quaint names: Polo Girl, Basket Ball Girl, Rowing Girl and Tennis Girl. The Hamilton Girls became shorthand for particular female types — athletic women in this case.
According to the exhibit’s curator, customers could get these larger cards after collecting a complete set of smaller cards and sending them to the cigarette maker (who, in turn, would send a large card, possibly more, back to the customer). In fact, the last set of cards in the exhibition by commercial illustrator Valentine Sandberg (Harper’s Weekly, Life) were small folders with a picture on one side and a coupon on the other that could be redeemed for a larger-size print.
The cards showcased here, big ones and small ones, portray women trying their hands at baseball, basketball, tennis, polo, fencing, golf, gymnastics, cycling, and more. It may be staged, but their time will come.
©2013 Val Castronovo for SeniorWomen.com
Photographs courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Jefferson R. Burdick Collection
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