Lucy Ellen Mears 1870 tintype
This is a tintype photograph. It may have had a paper sleeve covering it originally, but those often tear, and the tintype falls out. Someone has helpfully identified the subject, location and date for this image, and written it on a label pasted to the back. The inscription reads “Lucy Ellen Mears, 19 months, Neponset Mass, 1870″. We didn’t find her with a quick census search of the 1870 census — the name was probably indexed wrong — but in the 1880 census we find 11 year old Lucy E Mears living in Boston (Neponset is a Boston neighborhood), daughter of John and Caroline. So the identification and date is probably correct, though of course we can not be sure. Only other identified photos of Lucy at the same approximate age could confirm the identification.
Note that she is sitting on the typical tasseled photographer’s chair, with a plain wall for a background — a typical low-budget photographer’s studio for the period. Tintypes were cheap, often just a dollar for a dozen, and some photographers specialized in just that form.
Lucy wears an off-the-shoulder checkered frock with a thin matching belt, and short sleeves tied up with ribbons at the back. Her hair is center-parted and pulled back, probably into a pony tail. There are light smudges of rouge coloring on the cheeks — two quick dabs to add a ‘life-like’ color to the image.
