The Tinman, woodcut from "Little Jack of All Trades," published by Thomas Waite and Company and Charles Williams, Boston, Massachusetts, 1813. Courtesy of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Library, Deerfield, Massachusetts.
The Tinman, woodcut from "Little Jack of All Trades," published by Thomas Waite and Company and Charles Williams, Boston, Massachusetts, 1813. Courtesy of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Library, Deerfield, Massachusetts.
The artisan known as the "tinman" worked either with tin or with rolled sheets of iron coated in tin. These mechanics shaped the tin and soldered edges together. This illustration shows a tin worker striking a cup with a mallet on an anvil.
Known as "tinkers," tin peddlers traveled rural areas selling tin ware and repairing broken housewares.