This David Livingstone trading card is from the series: “The World’s Greatest Explorers,” New York, American Tobacco Co., 1910. This, and others like it, accompanied packs of Hassan cork tip cigarettes. As advances in medicine and technology made longer journeys possible, the zeal for African exploration peaked. A host of European travelers, driven by scientific curiosity, the desire for conquest or profit, missionary fervor or a thirst for adventure, explored the continent. Their adventures captured the Victorian public’s imagination. From The Art of African Exploration a Smithsonian Institution Libraries Web site.
