Baseball cards have been an integral part of American culture for over 100 years, connecting generations of fans to their favorite players and teams. Springfield, Illinois played an important role in the early history and development of baseball cards. In the late 19th century, Springfield was a bustling Midwestern city of over 20,000 residents known for its railroads and burgeoning industries. It was also a hotbed for the growing popularity of baseball.
Some of the earliest baseball cards produced in America came from local lithographers and printers in Springfield. In the 1880s, several tobacco companies began inserting small promotional cards into their cigarette and chewing tobacco packages as a marketing gimmick. Many of these early tobacco cards featured images of famous baseball players from the time period. In 1886, a Springfield lithography company named Goodwin and Company is believed to have printed one of the very first large sets of baseball cards exclusively for distribution. Their set included over 50 cards featuring players from major league teams.
While these early Springfield-made baseball cards were produced in smaller quantities compared to later mass-produced sets, they helped establish the collectible card trend and drive interest in baseball card collecting as a new American pastime. They depicted star players from the day like Cap Anson, Dan Brouthers, Buck Ewing and other legends of the 1880s. Many of the original Goodwin and Company cards from 1886 are extremely rare and valuable today for serious baseball card collectors and historians. They represent a foundational moment in the development of baseball cards as both a promotional tool and collectible hobby.
In the late 1880s and 1890s, several other baseball card sets were printed in Springfield by smaller regional tobacco companies and local printers hoping to capitalize on the growing fad. Sets from brands like G.B. Allen & Co. Cigarettes and Springfield’s own H.W. Putnam & Co. Chewing Tobacco featured cards highlighting star players and teams. While mass-produced on a smaller scale than later tobacco issues, these early Springfield baseball cards helped spread interest in collecting beyond just the local Midwestern region. They established the city as an early hub for the nascent baseball card industry.
By the turn of the 20th century, baseball had become America’s national pastime and the sport was exploding in popularity nationwide. This boom translated to unprecedented demand for baseball cards from fans and collectors across the country. In response, the major tobacco companies began investing heavily in large-scale baseball card production and distribution to help promote their brands on a massive level. Two of the “Big Three” tobacco brands that would come to dominate early 20th century baseball cards had roots in Springfield – American Tobacco Company and Hazeltine Corporation.
American Tobacco was one of the first major companies to produce cards on a national scale, issuing their famous T206 set from 1909-1911 featuring over 500 different baseball players. While based out of Durham, North Carolina, American Tobacco had acquired several smaller regional tobacco brands over the years, including H.W. Putnam & Co. of Springfield. Many credit the earlier Springfield experiments with localized baseball card production in the 1880s-1890s as helping inspire American Tobacco’s national expansion into the baseball card market a decade later.
Hazeltine Corporation was a leading Midwest-based cigarette manufacturer founded in Springfield in 1864. In 1909, Hazeltine issued their most famous early set – the E90 series. Highlighting stars from the National League, the Hazeltine E90 set helped popularize baseball cards in the Midwest and beyond. Hazeltine would go on to issue several other notable early 20th century sets over the next decade before being acquired by American Tobacco in 1918. The baseball card legacies of both American Tobacco and Hazeltine can be traced back in part to their Springfield roots in Illinois.
The early experiments with baseball card production in Springfield laid important groundwork and helped inspire the national card craze that exploded in the early 1900s. Stars of the day like Honus Wagner, Nap Lajoie, and Cy Young gained new fame and widespread recognition through their cardboard representations in sets issued by the tobacco trust. Springfield played a pivotal, if little known, role in the emergence of baseball cards from a small novelty inserted in tobacco products to a true national phenomenon enjoyed by millions of fans. The city’s history in those formative decades helped establish baseball cards as both a promotional tool and beloved hobby that would endure for over a century.
While Springfield lost its direct connection to the baseball card industry by the mid-20th century as production centralized elsewhere, the city takes pride in its place in the history and origins of America’s favorite collectible. Local history museums highlight the early Springfield-made card sets and lithography companies. The legacy also lives on through dedicated collectors who seek out and treasure the rare surviving cards from Springfield’s pioneering tobacco brands as examples of when baseball cards were first taking root in culture. From the 1880s to the early 1900s, Springfield played an overlooked but important founding role in establishing baseball cards as both a business and pastime enjoyed by generations to come.
