Tintype of Young African American Woman Seated at Table [n.d.]

Black and white tintype of an unidentified woman seated with hand-colored red detail on her scarf and the tablecloth. The date, location and photographer are unknown. This tintype was in the possession of Iris Sloman Bell, of St. Catharines, Ontario. Relatives of the Bell - Sloman families include former slaves from the United States who escaped to Canada. They later settled in the London and St. Catharines areas of southern Ontario."Tintypes were the invention of Prof. Hamilton Smith of Ohio. They begin as thin sheets of iron, covered with a layer of black paint. This serves as the base for the same iodized collodion coating and silver nitrate bath used in the ambrotype process. First made in 1856, millions were produced well into the twentieth century. When tintypes were finished in the same sorts of mats and cases used for ambrotypes, it can be almost impossible to distinguish which process was used without removing the image to examine the substrate." Source: American Museum of Photography http://www.photographymuseum.com/primer.html