Tintypes

I have 2 tintypes in my collection of old family memorabilia. I found these buried among JR’s Grandma’s stuff. Stuff that included stacks of receipts, piles of letters bound by string and ribbons, photographs tucked into books, in the folds of letters, and enclosed in envelopes, things that make up the minutiae that represent what we know of her and her family’s lives.

I belive that the guy on the right is JR's great great grandfather.

Tintypes or melainotypes or ferrotypes (all the same thing. There was a little controversy about who and what invented the tintype in the U.S. that I'm sure included pistols at dawn) are photographs created by making a direct positive on a sheet of metal; usually on iron or steel never on tin. The name tintype may have been given to them because they were cut from the plate of steel or iron with a pair of tin snips.

Tintypes were the working man’s photograph. Developed in 1853 in France, tintypes made their way to the U.S. in 1856. They were popular from 1856 to 1880 when new Kodak technology made them obsolete.

I could have cropped this one a little better.

Tintypes were very popular with Civil War soldiers and their families. The equipment required was very portable. Photographs could be taken in the field or at home and given to the customer almost immediately. Put into a sleeve they were easily mailed.

Another use was to take pictures of infant or young children when they died as a rememberance. Sounds morbid but you have to remember that the infant mortality rate was very high. A mother wants to remember her baby. Finally. now, she had a way to do so. Sad but true.

Tintypes have no negatives so they are mirror images. If a person looks like they are holding a glass in their left hand they are really holding it in their right hand. Cool huh?

I suspect that these gentlemen were the 4 Norwegian brothers that immigrated to America in the 1850s. They are JR's ancestors. I have some cool stories about these fellows that I will relate later. JR's direct descendant and his brothers turned out to be quite the characters.

Any of you have crazy characters in your family?

Love,
M