#melainotype

This is another tintype (melainotype or ferrotype) photographic portrait taken in 1890 that I've adjusted to show a little more detail. Probably a visitor to a fair, or carnival it seems a shame to have such a face obscured by the dark patina that's built up in 130 years. She might have returned home, shown it to her parents, and then stored it safely in a drawer. It could have been stored between the pages of her journal, or given to a sweetheart, in any case it was well looked after, and frrom the lack of marks, and creases, very rarely handled. I don't have a name,  but these are some of the events from around the world at the start of that last decade of the 19th century, perhaps she was involved in one of them, or it made it's way to the pages of her local newspaper ....

Events of 1890 ....

January 15 ... The Sleeping Beauty, with music by Tchaikovsky, is premiered at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia.

January 25 ... The United Mine Workers of America is founded, and Nellie Bly completes her round-the-world journey in 72 days.

March 4 ... The Forth Bridge, across the Firth of Forth in Scotland, is opened to rail traffic.

March 28 ... Washington State University is founded in Pullman.

May 1 ... A coordinated series of mass rallies and one-day strikes is held throughout many cities and mining towns, in Europe and North America, to demand an eight-hour workday.

June 20 ... The Picture of Dorian Gray (by Oscar Wilde) is published by Philadelphia-based Lippincott's Monthly Magazine.

June 27 ... Canadian-born boxer George Dixon defeats the British bantamweight champion in London, giving him claim to be the first black world champion in any sport.

July 3 ... Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state.

July 10 ... Wyoming is admitted as the 44th U.S. state.

July 14 ... Lime-green is first described as a color.

July 27 ... Death of Vincent van Gogh: van Gogh shoots himself, dying two days later.

August 20 ... Treaty of London: Portugal and the United Kingdom define the borders of the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique and Angola.

October 9 ... The first brief flight of Clément Ader's steam-powered fixed-wing aircraft Ader Éole takes place in Satory, France. It flies uncontrolled approximately 50 m (160 ft) at a height of 20 cm (7.9 in), the first take-off of a powered airplane solely under its own power.

October 11 ... In Washington, D.C., the Daughters of the American Revolution is founded.

November 4 ... The first deep level London Underground (Tube) Railway, the City and South London Railway, opens officially.

November ... Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, moves to a building on London's Victoria Embankment, as New Scotland Yard.

December 29 ... Wounded Knee Massacre: At Wounded Knee, South Dakota, Shooting begins, and 153 Lakota Sioux and 25 troops are killed; about 150 flee the scene. This is the last tribe to be defeated and confined to a reservation as well as the beginning of the decline of both the American Indian Wars and the American frontier.

My colourised version of the tintype portrait taken in 1890 has been slightly cropped to better display the detail

Ferrotype sous cadre18x21cm - ovale 7x9cm -  XIXe

It might have been a carnival novelty in 1885, but 135 years later it's a precious historical record ... Read more below

This sharply detailed tintype photograph was produced around 135 years ago. The process had enjoyed it's widest use during the 1860s, and 1870s in formal photographic studios, but later they were most commonly made by photographers working in booths or the open air at fairs and carnivals, as well as by itinerant sidewalk photographers. A tintype, also known as a melainotype or ferrotype, is a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a thin sheet of metal coated with a dark lacquer or enamel and used as the support for the photographic emulsion. Compared to their most important predecessor, the daguerreotype, tintypes were not only very inexpensive, they were also relatively easy and quick to make Because the lacquered iron support (there is no actual tin used) was resilient and did not need drying, a tintype could be developed and fixed and handed to the customer only a few minutes after the picture had been taken. The tintype saw the Civil War come and go, documenting the individual soldier and horrific battle scenes. It captured scenes from the Wild West, as it was easy to produce by itinerant photographers working out of covered wagons. This family have decided to record their visit to what looks like a carnival, fair, or possibly even an open air meeting of some sort. It's still an amazing thought that well over a century later this intimate family picture is carried all over the world in a split second, a world very different from the day that picture was taken in a field outside a small midwestern town. This is my colourised version of the open air tintype taken around 1885