Some of the photos in the Archives' collections are tintypes. This a freaky technique in which images were exposed onto an actual piece of metal--a thin sheet of iron (not tin) that has been "japanned", or, covered with a coating of black enamel or lacquer. The iron plates used for tintypes were cut with tinsnips, sometimes resulting in an irregularly-shaped plate. Corners were often clipped, as here, to help the tintype better fit into photo album pockets. Tintypes came in a variety of sizes, with "gems" being tiny photos that could be inserted into a brooch or pendant.
Since the image from the lens is exposed directly onto the metal plate, without the use of a negative, it appears as horizontally reversed from the actual real-life scene. Some photographers had cameras with mirrors to correct this reversal. In this unlabeled Archives photo, the dog would likely have been facing left in the studio. You can see that the photographer hand-tinted this tintype by rouging the cheeks of the child.
Tintypes were popular with Civil War soldiers because they were durable and could be mailed without worry that they would be damaged. Tintypes originally became popular in the mid-1850s and waned in the 1890s as new technologies took over, but they continued to be produced into the 20th century, often at fairs or carnivals as a novelty. To this day, tintypes are some of the best-preserved photographic prints in the Archives.
