Photography
was introduced to the United States at around the same time that a new religion was born in the nation. Spiritualism promised a connection to the dead in their realm through human mediums, and some thought photography might
capture physical manifestations of spirits. Peter Manseau tells the story of the first spirit
photographer in The Apparitionist.
The man who
captured the first supposed spirit photograph was an amateur at the time. William Mumler thought he had made in error in
cleaning the glass on which the photonegative was captured when a faint image
appeared in a self-portrait he shot in 1862. He was using the photo studio owned by Hannah Stuart. The married photographer, soon to be
widowed and soon after that to be Mrs. Mumler, was a Spiritualist, and she
convinced him that the image was not an error, but an apparition. The photos
caught the attention of the Spiritualist press, first in the New York-based Herald of Progress, then in Mumler’s hometown of Boston in the Beacon
of Light, which
published the address of the Stuart studio.
Soon the
studio was producing many spirit photographs; they even took orders by mail
from across the country. Bostonian Spiritualists compared photos and found
evidence that Mumler was faking the images. Discredited, the Mumler’s moved to
New York to quietly offer spirit photographs again. Their practice there let to
criminal prosecution in 1869. Photographers knew of ways to produce such images, but no
investigators could figure out what Mumler was doing. Though the judge gave did
not suggest the photos actually captured images of spirits, he rejected the
prosecution’s case because it did not adequately support the charges of fraud and similar crimes.
Even with
such tepid vindication, the atmosphere in New York was too hot for the Mumlers,
so they returned to Boston. Though Mumler continued to take spirit photos, he
had developed a much deeper understanding of the art and science of photography. He developed a
process that allowed for the direct reproduction of photos on newsprint;
founded the Photo-Electrotype Company of Boston and licensed his process to
companies in other cities. This allowed newspapers and magazines to less expensively reproduce images
without preparing an engraving first.
Manseau also
discussed the development of photography in the United States after the art was
introduced here. This includes American pioneers of photography such as Samuel Morse, also inventor of the telegraph, and Civil War battlefield photographers Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner.
If you’re interested in this book, you
may also be interested in
The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg
Arthur & George by Julian
Barnes
Billion Dollar Whale by Tom
Wright and Bradley Hope
Buried Alive by Jan Bondeson
Chief Engineer by Erica Wagner
Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes
Enchantress of Numbers by Jennifer
Chiaverini
The Explorer King by Robert Wilson
The Man Who Loved Books too Much by Allison
Hoover Bartlett
The Real World of Sherlock Holmes by Peter
Costello
Scan Artist by Marcia Biederman
Super Attractor by Gabrielle Bernstein
Manseau,
Peter. The Apparitionists: A Tale of
Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln’s Ghost. New
York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.
