American Village in Montevallo, Alabama provides excellent educational resources regarding America's Colonial past and our pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. Visitors can walk the grounds of an immaculately groomed and maintained American village with its period dressed citizens. Since its inception, American Village has welcomed and taught scores of school children and adults alike. While permanent photography did not exist during Colonial times (it came about in the early 1800s through the work of Joseph Niepce, Henry Talbot, Louis Daguerre and others), Johann Heinrich Schulze did discover prior to the American Revolution (in the early 1700s) that silver salts darken when exposed to light. In an effort to gain a period feel, these photographs were processed with a selenium and sepia treatment.