My grandmother passed away at the age of 89 a few months ago, and I was going through some of her old papers when I came upon this wonderful tintype photograph of my great great grandmother. Her name was Mary E. Hampton Ashford, mother of George Hampton Ashford, who was my grandmother's dad. It looks to me like this photo was taken in the late 1870s - early 1880s, probably in Arkansas because that is where she was from.
To me, my great great grandmother looks like the girl next door, yet there is a haunting quality to the image because of the wonderful nature of the tintype process, and the tumultuous era it was taken in. A tintype photograph is produced by making a direct positive image on a sheet of iron metal, which is then blackened by painting or enameling, resulting in a photographic emulsion. There is no actual tin used on the images, but the finished product is remarkably resilient -- this photo of my great great grandmother is about as thick and durable as a credit card.
You didn't have to be rich to get one of these things made in America -- the people who created the majority of these tintype images tended to work outside carnivals or local fairs. The photographs could be produced a few minutes after they were taken. I don't know if it's possible to reproduce what the actual image looks like with a scanner or a camera -- physically it looks like a thin sheet of silver with an image that doesn't appear to be printed on the outside, but is instead on the inside -- part of the thin slab of iron -- almost like a tiny mercurial mirror peering into the past.
It's funny, as I wrote this brief post, Microsoft Word warned me several times that I needed to stop repeating the word "great" every time I wrote great great grandmother. I guess there aren't too many people who even know who their great great grandparents are, less yet can look at an actual photograph of an ancestor from the nineteenth century, so the term "great great grandparent" is not one that is commonly used by many people. I assume that will change as more and more people live longer. I guess my great great grandmother's tintype is the oldest man-made thing I own, aside from some smelly old comics I have from the 1950s packed in a plastic container.
As I look at this beautiful young woman with her whole life ahead of her, this tintype photo really brings home the fact that the Civil War was a long time ago in terms of mankind's technological development, but really only yesterday if we look at the whole of human history.
The quality is not as good because the image is slightly damaged, but here's another photograph I also found today of my great great grandmother, taken a few years later -- right after she got married.
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Thanks for the comment. I was able to scan the tintypes, but they come out looking very dark, almost black. So I had to adjust the contrast and saturation a lot to get an image that looked like the original tintype, but the scan doesn't capture the eerie metallic, mirror-like quality of the original.
Also notice the color on the first photo -- the metal tintype is black and white because they didn't have the technology to shoot color photos yet, so the color was added by the photographer by hand.
Thanks for checking out the post. I'm sure many people have seen a zillion Civil War era photos and many know about the history of photography, but I figured it might be fun to share what I found here. That thin tintype is likely to become one of my most prized possessions -- a constant reminder of how far we've come technologically, yet how little time has passed since America was divided by a devastating, bloody Civil War.
As far as I know, the family was pretty poor and working class. In the first photo, my great-great-grandmother was probably wearing her "Sunday best" -- maybe her only dress, something worn for church or special occasions.
The second photo was taken several years later, around the late 1870s - early 1880s, and she was probably wearing regular clothes -- the type of thing she might wear around town or at home.
We not only see a transition from youth to adulthood in her fashion, but the two images also symbolize the transition from the idealized conception of the beautiful south where southern belles wore such beautiful gowns, to the more utilitarian dress of the wild west era.
Thanks a lot to everyone for the comments.
I've also seen a lot of tintype photos for sale online over the years. It is kind of sad that either their relatives are no longer alive, or they don't realize (or care) that images of their ancestors exist. I'm always amazed by how short the history of photography is and how much we take the technology for granted. You mention you are in Paris, most historians feel the first permanent photograph was an image produced in 1826 by a French inventor named Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.
However, I was enchanted by the lead picture. Heritage? Black Irish? Greek? Albanian? Slav? Russian Jew? Or, just English?
Not that it matters, but its kind of a game with me. Let me go back and re-read. What nationalities were in the great great great and great great?
The writing was reflective and a bit cloy for me (the bit about great great great in Microsoft Word was over played). But...everything was solid and echoed the photographs- like the words matched.
I'm pretty sure the first photo is from the late 1870s and the second one is from the early 1880s. The American Civil War lasted from 1861 - 1865, so chances are she was born right before or during the war.
I think I might do a part 2 to this article in the near future and answer some of the questions people are asking in a little more detail.
Thanks again to everyone for reading the artice and commenting.
That's pretty amazing. I'm also learning a lot of new things about my family tree -- a lot of people studied geneology over the last few decades and they've amassed quite a pile of research. I'll probably post a few follow-ups to this post in the future, and I look forward to reading your material.