Posted on 1 Comment on Transparent Faces & Hidden Mothers: Processing Tintypes at Historic New England

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

By: Caroline Littlewood

This portrait of a woman and child contains white lines. Note the oval mark where a frame or mount used to be.
This portrait of a woman and child contains white lines. Note the oval mark where a frame or mount used to be. Historic New England, Library and Archives.

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.

I began by surveying the collection. At first, the tintypes looked very similar.
Historic New England, Library and Archives

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”.

This portrait of a young woman was categorized as a “Transparent Face.” Historic New England, Library and Archives
This portrait of a young woman was categorized as a “Transparent Face.” Historic New England, Library and Archives
Tintype close-up
Some tintype portraits are more intricately painted than others. Historic New England, Library and Archives

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.

This is one of roughly 200 “hidden mothers.” Historic New England Library and Archives
This is one of roughly 200 “hidden mothers.” Historic New England Library and Archives

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.

Smaller tintypes often came in paper sleeves or mounts.
Smaller tintypes often came in paper sleeves or mounts. Historic New England, Library and Archives

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.

Posted on No Comments on Think Like an Archivist: A Public Historian Processes the Washington Street Corridor Coalition Collection

Think Like an Archivist: A Public Historian Processes the Washington Street Corridor Coalition Collection

By: Caroline Littlewood

Recently, the University Archives and Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston acquired the papers of the Washington Street Corridor Coalition (WSCC), a local organization committed to transport justice. The WSCC, a community group active in Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, the South End, and Chinatown during the 1980s and 1990s, advocated for adequate replacement of the Elevated Orange Line along Washington Street.

The Elevated Orange Line on Washington Street south from Corning Street, ca. 1908. Courtesy of Boston City Archives. See City of Boston Flickr albums for more historic photos.

The group also facilitated community involvement in the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) planning and development process and orchestrated protests when MBTA service did not meet their community’s needs.

Flyer, produced by the WSCC, announcing a silent vigil to express a sense of community loss over the El’s closure.

Three decades after the Coalition’s founding, the WSCC records provide a treasure trove for researchers interested in community organizing, grassroots activism, and resident resistance to development.

Along with three other collections, the WSCC records were entrusted to the graduate students of Professor Marilyn Morgan’s Archival Methods & Practices class in spring 2017. On the first day of class, I was assigned to process the WSCC collection. I spent the rest of the semester preparing it for researchers and preserving it for the future. To do these things, I needed to produce a finding aid that described the contents of the collection and the value of the story it tells.

A carton of the Washington Street Corridor Coalition collection, in February 2017, before it was processed.

The first time I set eyes on my collection, I confronted a single cardboard box with dividers and papers and spiral notebooks and more papers. Next to the box was a pile of bound reports, inches thick. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, and I knew next to nothing about the WSCC. I had the urge to research my collection the way one would a person or artifact. But I couldn’t. Nothing had been written yet; the research materials weren’t in an archive or library. They sat in front of me, thousands of pages thick and unprepared for use by the public.

As a public history student and genealogist, I’ve learned how to interrogate a document from every angle, wringing every last drop of evidence. The urge to analyze is so ingrained, it’s practically instinctual. When faced with the WSCC collection, I wanted to pull up a chair and get to reading. However, I would not be assessing and describing every individual item in the collection. This would take too much time and prevent timely public access to the documents. It would be unnecessary and a waste of resources. Instead, I would be describing groups of documents.

To do this, I had to train my brain to work a little differently, to seek different kinds of information. Scanning each document, I had to consider intellectual content. Was it a letter, a memo, a map? Was there sensitive information? A date? What was it about? I also had to consider physical content. Did the document need to be photocopied, moved to the oversize folder, or rid of a rusty staple?

At first, this was an uncomfortable process for me. I couldn’t simultaneously assess the physical and intellectual content. But after practice, I began to see in a new way.

MBTA map showing the Washington Street Elevated route, as it existed from 1938 to 1975. Wikimedia Commons.

I scanned for the names and acronyms of key players, following the gist of their correspondence without reading every word, and understanding the general findings of reports without flipping through every page. By the end of the semester, I knew that the Elevated Orange Line train was a vital transport link which ran along Washington Street, through downtown Boston and neighboring communities.

When the MBTA moved the Orange Line to the southwest corridor and closed the “El” in 1987, community groups came together under the WSCC name to hold the MBTA accountable to their 1973 promise that they would replace it with equal or better service.

Excerpt of a publication concerning the replacement of the El.

I learned that the WSCC had launched an extensive letter writing campaign in support of Light Rail Vehicles and worked with other organizations to hold community dialogues about replacement options. I also knew that the MBTA finally replaced the old Orange Line with the Silver Line, a Bus Rapid Transit system the WSCC deemed neither better than, nor equal to, Orange Line service. And as the Silver Line expanded, WSCC activity waned.

Newspaper clipping reporting on the community reaction to the closing of the EL, 1987.

I was inspired and challenged by this collection. It was my first experience facilitating access to archival material, rather than mining the material, myself. The primary purpose of my investigation was to aid and encourage the investigations of others. This was a new goal for me, but, at the end of the day, it fit. As a public historian, I want to connect people to history and encourage historical thinking. Maybe, with a little more brain training, I can do this from within the archives, too.