The Cheapness and Americanness of the Tintype

"We find that the word tintype was widely used from early on; and it is the only word generally recognized today. How did this come about? None of the literature, past or present, gives an adequate explanation for the misnomer. We can speculate that tintype derives from tinplate, the name of the thin iron sheet used by the tinsmith to construct his wares.
The manufacturers of ferrotype or tintype plates also used tinplate, coating it with black enamel and photographic emulsion. It was a short leap from tinplate to the alliterative tintype. I believe that tintype replaced ferrotype and melainotype because it is short and catchy, because it sounds American and cheap."

America and the Tintype
Steven Kasher
With essays by Geofffry Batchen & Karen Haltunen
ICP/STEIDL, 2008
ISBN 978-3-86521-686-1