The Library of Congress has released an amazing collection of almost 700 images of framed, Civil War-era tintypes and ambrotypes. I’ll stick a few under the fold, but you really should click over and browse the set. (Someone should make a book.)

A while back I bought America and the Tintype [amazon], by Steven Kasher. It’s a pretty good book – for some reason not included on the list of tintype-related titles on the LOC’s flickr page – but a bit pricey. I’ll just quote a bit from the intro and concluding essays: [click to continue…]