Autochrome Transparency
Hopi woman grinding foodstuff (corn, most likely) with two-hand mano and a metate. She is kneeling over the mealing bin which is inside an adobe structure. She is wearing a cotton print dress and is smiling demurely at the photographer.
- Object: Autochrome Transparency
- Artist: George Holt
- Circa: Early to mid 1920s
- Dimensions: 3 1/4 x 4"
- Culture Area: Southwest
- Cultural Group: Hopi
- Cultural Context: Mealing bins with upright sandstone slab walls containing flat metates are found throughout the archaeology of the southwest. The Hopi women, in keeping with tradition, use these bins to grind corn and other foodstuff for meals. Often a bin will be divided into 2 or 3 compartments, each with a metate. This allows for the social interaction of the women in the household as they tend to everyday chores. The bins are relatively permanent fixtures (usually found inside a dwelling) whereas the metates and manos can be moved from place to place. The autochrome transparencies in the Flegal collection were taken by George Holt, the donor's father. He was a chaplain for the baptist church and travelled all over the world visiting missionaries and subsequently photographing neophytes in various locales. The autochrome process was the first commercially successful color application of photography which enabled photographers like Holt to get high quality color photos of their subjects. However, the burden of carrying numerous unexposed glass plates to remote locations often proved cumbersome, at best. As a sidebar, the historic significance of autochrome is worth noting. As mentioned earlier, autochromes were "the first viable color photographic process." The process was patented in 1907 by Auguste and Louis Lumiere of France. "The autochrome 'screen' was created by forming a layer of minute starch grains dyed in the primary colors (red, blue, green) ..." which was over lain with a layer of lampblack (filling the space between the grains) then a layer of shellack. "So when exposed, the light traversed the glass through the grain and exposed the light/color sensitive emulsion from the back. After exposure (using a view camera on a tripod) the plate was processed to reverse in an acid dichromate-type process."
- Donor: Mrs. Carl Flegal
- Catalog #: 97.075