[Charlie Bennett, Detroit Wolverines, baseball card portrait]

Over 100 years, images of athletes went from tobacco companies' marketing materials to overhyped investments favored by nostalgic colelctors.

Vintage baseball cards have been a prime focus of countless collectors and historians of one of America's favorite pastimes. Find vintage baseball cards from Library of Congress Collection.

Alois Senefelder, the inventor of lithography, introduced the subject of colored lithography in 1818. Printers in other countries, such as France and England, were also started producing color prints. The first American chromolithograph—a portrait of Reverend F. W. P. Greenwood—was created by William Sharp in 1840. Chromolithographs became so popular in American culture that the era has been labeled as "chromo civilization". During the Victorian times, chromolithographs populated children's and fine arts publications, as well as advertising art, in trade cards, labels, and posters. They were also used for advertisements, popular prints, and medical or scientific books.

image_search Find relevant images and pages