Tobacco companies hired photographer Paul Thompson to create baseball-card imagery, and his photographs became the basis for many cards sold with cigarettes around 1910.
Notes on verification
Confirmed by Library of Congress collection notes and blog, plus SABR biography, but 'hired' overstates the relationship—Thompson was an independent photographer whose copyrighted portraits were licensed/used by American Tobacco Co., not a direct employee. [tier=silver indep_score=0.925 clusters=2 claim_tier=notable]
Sources
- Would Baseball have Become America's National Pastime Without ... (seed:culture_and_philosophy)
- https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2007675750/ (corroboration)
- https://blogs.loc.gov/picturethis/2012/10/from-player-portraits-to-baseball-cards/ (corroboration)
- https://sabr.org/latest/canale-paul-thompsons-pioneering-baseball-portraits/ (corroboration)