Hamilton Lanphere Smith: The Inventor Who Captured Light in Iron

On November fifth, eighteen nineteen, Hamilton Lanphere Smith was born in New York, USA. He was a physician, inventor, and amateur photographer, and his work took place at the intersection of chemistry, optics, and early photography.

Smith is best known for his groundbreaking invention in photographic technology in the mid-eighteen-fifties. The common photographic technique of the time, the daguerreotype, was complicated, expensive, and produced only one, non-reproducible image. Smith developed a new process called the ferrotype, also known as the "tintype" in English. This method used a dark-lacquered iron plate as a base, coated with a light-sensitive chemical emulsion. When the plate was exposed in a camera and then developed, it created a positive image directly, without the need for a negative. The ferrotype was revolutionary: it was much cheaper, faster, and more durable than the daguerreotype, and could produce multiple copies. This made portrait photography accessible to the middle class for the first time and played a significant role during the American Civil War as soldiers could send pictures home to their families. Smith's invention democratized the art of photography and captured a century in images.