Tintype Photograph

People today love taking pictures. Pictures can be taken anywhere using an iPhone or other device. It was not so easy one hundred years ago. This artifact of the week goes back to the earliest days of photography. The tintype photograph was developed before the American Civil War and differed from other forms of photography because the image was developed on a thin metal sheet. A metal plate was prepared for the photograph by dousing it in chemicals and then inserting it into the camera. The negative was produced on the metal and the positive was created by pouring chemicals on the plate. No copies could be made of the photograph because no separate negative was produced. Tintypes were durable and cheap to produce. The woman in the photograph is unidentified.

 Click on the video to see how a tintype was made:

 Information taken from Eastman Museum film featured here and Encyclopedia Britannica entry on tintype photography.