Race Sells

Abstract

This article examines the uses of racialized images of Africans, American Indians, and Chinese in tradesmen’s cards (image-driven business cards) in Britain in the 18th century, a period of remarkable variety and variability in its notions about human difference. Due to this fluidity, multiple and even contradictory race representations made their way onto trade cards. For example, in some tobacco tradesmen’s cards, Africans were depicted as whimsical, carefree cherubs; in others they were ennobled as savage princes. While these conflicting depictions speak of the multiplicity of race views operating in the culture, they also demonstrate the uniform appropriation of the racial image in the service of commercial-colonial interests. Depending on the specific commercial advantage to be gained, a racialized trade image was constructed to affirm certain cultural values, such as participation in the colonial enterprise or adoption of western modes of civility. Collectively and from a cultural studies vantage point, these images embody the complexity of competing and colliding cultural discourses, from race and aesthetic theories to the colonialist agenda.

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