Transparent Faces & Hidden Mothers: Processing Tintypes at Historic New England

By: Caroline Littlewood

She found them at flea markets. Hundreds of painted tintype photographs—colorful portraits of anonymous Americans—caught Dr. Diana Korzenik’s eye, and, over the years, she amassed an impressive collection. The tintypes range in size and vary in appearance. Some are so thickly coated in color that the original photographic image is obscured. Others have one or two pigments to make a face blush or a necklace sparkle. But each tintype is evidence of another time, when photography was young. Invented in the 1850s, tintypes preserved likenesses of working class Americans who could not afford daguerreotypes. Whether once hung on a wall for all to see, or sent through the post as a token of affection, these historical artifacts are important records of a time past.

Only within the last couple decades have collectors come to value painted tintypes. For years, they were more interested in the antique frames that encased them. But Dr. Korzenik saw value where others hadn’t and sought to preserve them, along with smaller, unpainted tintypes of working-class women and children. To promote the continued study and appreciation of tintypes, Dr. Korzenik recently donated her substantial collection to Historic New England.

As the Historic New England intern responsible for processing Dr. Korzenik’s donation, I sought to convert this personal collection into an archival collection that would be accessible to researchers. I began by surveying and researching my materials. I dove into classic works like Taft’s Photography and the American Scene: A Social History which helped me to understand what I had before me and formulate a processing plan. I researched rehousing and preservation recommendations then tallied the contents of the collection to order the appropriate sleeves and boxes. When I had these archival materials in hand, I set to rehousing and describing each item. By the end of my internship, I had processed over 520 individual tintypes at the item level, produced a finding aid and helped digitize a portion of the collection.

The experience was thrilling and rewarding, but it was not without its challenges. I hit my first obstacle early on as I surveyed the collection. Dr. Korzenik had numbered and grouped her tintypes, but I had no understanding of her organizational schema. The collection was an indecipherable mix of subjects, painting techniques, and plate size. Some categories described the physical manipulation of the tintype: “thick paint, white lines, black lines,” “hand-painted tintypes powder/gold jewelry/white lines/black lines,” and—my favorite—“transparent faces”.

Others described the portrait subjects or size: “children and couples,” “hidden mothers,” and “carte de visite-sized”. Why did she make these distinctions? What did they mean? When I spoke to Dr. Korzenik, she explained that the labels are meant to draw one’s eye to the compositional aspects of each photograph. The average person sees a photograph as an image meant to reflect reality.

But as a professional artist and educator, she also saw tintypes as artifacts that had been painted, tinted, highlighted, outlined, scratched, and solarized. Categories based on subject or size also shared composition traits. Her “hidden mothers”—portraits of young children with the adult presence concealed—are small and unpainted; “children and couples” are large and painted. Once I saw these layers and distinctions, I could better describe Dr. Korzenik’s materials and preserve the expertise that shaped her collecting activities.

The collection also challenged me to manage my time carefully. Early on, I realized that I was dealing with a miraculously growing collection, which had somehow ballooned from my estimated three hundred tintypes to over five hundred, plus a few non-tintype materials. I was eager to get started, but I had to wait for supplies to arrive. Once they arrived and I began rehousing, I struggled to standardize my descriptive language. But I used my time waiting for archival materials to work on my finding aid and produce a detailed spreadsheet. I asked my supervisors for help and examined finding aids from similar collections when I struggled with description. When I travelled to Historic New England’s Haverhill facility to work on framed tintypes, I documented my work carefully so that I could continue it offsite. And when I came to a tintype that warranted further investigation, I set it aside and continued with my work, assembly-line style.

Before I knew it, my time was up. I no longer think about tintypes most of my waking (and some of my sleeping) hours. But I know that my work will facilitate access to a historically rich and unique collection. Each tintype can be so many things. It can be a fashion plate, a genealogical record, and evidence of early photographic props, poses, and conventions. Furthermore, each painted tintype illustrates the relationship between young photographic technology and a traditional painted portraiture. Despite the challenges, I’ve helped to make these materials visible and accessible to the general public, and I don’t know if there is anything more rewarding than that.