Usually produced by studios and traveling craftspeople, tintypes were the cheapest form of photography in the mid-1800s. Because they were readily available, we now have images of the everyday lives of working people as well as members of the elite and middle class.

Individuals, their families, and the small businesses and farms they owned featured prominently in tintypes. Although the identities of the place and person in the two examples on display have been lost to time, the scratches and dents across their surfaces provide physical traces of the history of these unique pictures.