Cigarette Cards: Mapping Relations between Consumers, Colonialism and Trade

Cigarette card images are part of the ephemeral archive that can help a historian re-construct the complex relations between consumers, colonialism and trade, mediated by the fantasy of the advertised product. They were not always in harmony with each other as consumers evolved in their tastes and political education, while trade and colonialism were subjected to the traumas of world wars and decolonisation. The First World War in fact, with its paper shortages, occasionally stopped the flow of production of these cards.

As we saw briefly in our earlier post on cigarette cards on this platform, tobacco companies often sought to create narratives through the series they produced—whether locating them in the colonies or the metropolitan centers. Several such series were made by the Westminster Tobacco Co. Ltd., including the "Indian Empire," which showcased some of the easy, detachable ways in which images from the colonies could be carried around in pocket-friendly sizes with bites of information.

The cigarette card is as antiquated today as the thought of smoking publicly. Even if they were to make a comeback, it is hard to imagine them carrying the kinds of images they did once. The brutal rationality of the product’s impact on the consumer has replaced the mildly obsessive, inviting and trivial claims of the cigarette card of the past.

In case you missed the earlier post on cigarette cards, please search for "Collecting the World: Cigarette Cards in South Asia."

All images by the Westminster Tobacco Co. Ltd., from the private collection of Kazi Anirban.

Click on the image to view the album