The Apparitionists

Starred review from July 17, 2017
The “spirit photographs” of William H. Mumler (1832–1884) serve as a touchstone for reflections on photography and its impact on public perceptions of reality in this meticulously researched study of America’s dalliance with spiritualism in the 19th century. Trained as an engraver, Mumler began dabbling in photography in 1862, and the portraits he produced of ghostly loved ones hovering near mortal sitters captivated a culture obsessed with intimations of the afterlife. His best-known photo shows Mary Todd Lincoln being caressed by the ghostly hands of her husband six years after his assassination. Although accused of doctoring his photos and prosecuted for fraud in 1869 in a widely publicized trial, Mumler was acquitted for lack of proof and he eventually earned respect for developing the process by which photos could be directly transferred to newsprint. Manseau (Rag and Bone) provides comprehensive context for his chronicle of Mumler, placing him at the intersection of the Spiritualist movement and the rise of the photographic art, and in the context of the Civil War, which acquainted Americans with death on an unprecedented scale (and which yielded iconic photos by Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner that were themselves sometimes manipulated for effect). Ultimately, as the author eloquently puts it, Mumler’s trial was as much about “the very nature of the soul and the religious commitments of the country” as it was about a huckster exploiting (and providing reassurance to) the gullible. 29 b&w photos. Agent: Kathleen Anderson, Anderson Literary Management.

August 15, 2017
The tale of a provocative controversy and court trial from the formative era of photography.Written like a novel but researched with academic rigor, this account of a photographer whose work seemed to incorporate images from the spirit realm stops short of either endorsing the veracity of the photographer's claim or debunking his work as a scam. What Manseau (One Nation, Under Gods: A New American History, 2015), the curator of American Religious History at the Smithsonian, demonstrates is that William Mumler (1832-1884) was perhaps as mystified as his skeptics in his emergence as a "spirit photographer" whose photographs of a living subject might show a deceased relation hovering somewhere in the print. Court transcripts show that Mumler's subjects mostly believed in the legitimacy of the apparitions in his work and that none of the photographers who attempted to expose his trickery were able to do so. Yet the narrative is less an argument in favor of a miracle than an evocation of an era "shaped by war, belief, new technology, and a longing for connections across ever greater distances--a time not unlike our own." It was a time when the telegraph offered instantaneous communication across oceans and "transformed nearly every aspect of American life, and perhaps none more so than the press." It was also a time when electricity demonstrated the very real power of things unseen. If communication could become instantaneous across thousands of miles, why couldn't the emerging field of photography close the distance between the living and the dead? For this was also an era, even before the Civil War, when the country "was suffering a spiritual hangover," in which spiritualism and mediums who claimed to communicate with the dead were perceived as a threat to conventional Christianity. Thus the trial not only focused on the possibilities and limits of the emerging photographic technology, but on whether it was possible to reconcile such apparitions with the Bible. A well-paced nonfiction work that reads more like a historical novel than an academic study.

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September 15, 2017

In 1869, "spirit photographer" William Mumler was charged with fraud for producing photographs allegedly containing phantoms of the deceased. Widely covered in the daily papers, the case was described by Harper's Weekly as "remarkable and without precedent in the annals of criminal jurisprudence." In the aftermath of the Civil War, the nation was exploding with interest in making contact with lost loved ones. According to Smithsonian curator Manseau (Songs for the Butcher's Daughter), "It was a time when rapidly increasing scientific knowledge was regarded not as the enemy of supernatural obsessions, but an encouragement to them.... Now came Mumler and his camera offering sight beyond sight." After Mumler was acquitted, he made the defining picture of his career in 1872, capturing Mary Todd Lincoln with the spirit image of husband Abraham Lincoln. VERDICT For enthusiasts and experts alike of photography history and post-Civil War American history. Those interested in the fringes of Lincoln-related books will want to make room on the shelf for this work.--John Muller, Washington, DC, P.L.

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