09/25/2026
This tintype is part of the Elmore County Museum's collection. At first glance, it appears to show a young mother with a sleeping baby. A closer look, however, suggests that this may be a mourning, or post-mortem, photograph.
Post-mortem photography was not unusual during the 19th century. Infant and childhood mortality was high, and families did not have cameras filled with photographs of their children as we do today. In some cases, a photograph taken after death was the only image a family would ever have of a loved one.
The photograph itself is a tintype, a process that became popular in the 1850s. Despite the name, tintypes were not made of tin. The image was produced on a thin sheet of iron coated with a dark lacquer. Tintypes were inexpensive, relatively quick to produce, and durable, which made photography available to a much wider portion of the population.
So, what makes us believe the baby in this photograph may have already died?
Look carefully at the child's position. The baby appears to be resting across the mother's lap rather than being held or cradled. The body is completely relaxed, the head falls to one side, and the eyes are closed. The mother's arms and hands are also unusually relaxed. She does not appear to be actively supporting the baby's head or body. Instead, the child seems to have been positioned across her lap for the photograph.
A sleeping infant could certainly have been photographed, so the pose alone cannot prove that this is a post-mortem image. However, these details are consistent with known examples of 19th-century mourning photography.
There is another detail worth noticing. The mother and baby appear to be wearing clothing made from the same plaid fabric.
We cannot know why the matching clothing was made, but it suggests some preparation and thought went into dressing mother and child alike. Perhaps this was a mother excited about her new baby and pleased to have matching outfits for them. We simply do not know. But it is a small detail that tells us there was a story before the moment captured in this photograph.
Today, post-mortem photography can seem unusual to us. In the 19th century, however, these photographs served a very practical and personal purpose. They preserved the likeness of someone who had died and gave the family a photograph to keep.
This tintype has survived all these years and eventually found its way into the Elmore County Museum's collection. Although we may never know the names of this mother and child or their complete story, the photograph itself can still tell us quite a bit about photography, mourning, family, and remembrance in the 19th century.
