Tenement House, New York City, from the Habitations of Man series (N113) issued by W. Duke, Sons & Co. to promote Honest Long Cut Smoking and Chewing Tobacco
Medium
Commercial color lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 4 1/8 × 2 1/2 in. (10.5 × 6.4 cm)
Classification
Prints|Ephemera
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, Gift of Jefferson R. Burdick
Accession Number
63.350.206.113.14
Tags
Art Historical Context
This small but vivid commercial color lithograph from 1890 captures a tenement house in New York City as part of the “Habitations of Man” series (N113). Produced by W. Duke, Sons & Co. and printed by The Giles Company for the American Tobacco Company, the card was distributed to promote Honest Long Cut Smoking and Chewing Tobacco. Measuring just over four by two-and-a-half inches, it exemplifies the colorful trading cards that tobacco firms inserted into product packages during the late nineteenth century, turning everyday advertising into miniature windows on the world. Color lithography all...
About the Artist
American Tobacco Company|The Giles Company|W. Duke, Sons & Co.
**American Tobacco Company (1890–1911)** Founded on January 31, 1890, in Durham, North Carolina, by James Buchanan Duke, the American Tobacco Company emerged from the consolidation of five major U.S. tobacco manufacturers: W. Duke & Sons, Allen & Ginter, Goodwin & Company, W.S. Kimball & Co., and Kinney Brothers. Under Duke's aggressive leadership, it rapidly achieved monopoly status, controlling...