In The Strange Case of William Mumler, Spirit Photographer, Louis Kaplan brings together, for the first time, Mumler’s haunting images, his revealing memoir, and rich primary sources, including newspaper articles and P. T. Barnum’s famous indictment of Mumler in Humbugs of the World. Kaplan also contributes two extended essays, which offer a historical perspective of the Mumler phenomena and delve into the sociocultural and theoretical issues surrounding this vivid ghost story.

Mumler’s case was an early example of investigative journalism intersecting with a criminal trial that, at its essence, set science against religion. The Strange Case of William Mumler, Spirit Photographer is the definitive resource for this unique and fascinating moment in American history and provides insights into today’s ghosts in the machine.

“This book is an important contribution to the growing literature on spirit photography and gives the reader an intimate insight into the world of the Spiritualists and the occult power of the photograph in the 1860s. An extremely valuable resource.” Martyn Jolly, author of Faces of the Living Dead: The Belief in Spirit Photography

Kaplan does a great job of presenting both sides of the story and letting the reader decide about Mumler’s methods and motives — be they spiritual or earthly. The Strange Case of William Mumler, Spirit Photographer is a great reference for anyone studying photography, the Civil War era, trial law, ghosts, or spiritualism. Twin Cities Daily Planet

Professor Louis Kaplan allows history to speak in its own words for most of The Strange Case of William Mumler, Spirit Photographer. He couldn’t have made a more enlightening or entertaining choice. No modern telling could adequately capture the vibrancy and strangeness of the United States’ 19th-century infatuation with communication between the living and the dead. Globe and Mail.

Kaplan’s book is a must-have for researchers who want to know how we arrived at the notion that a ghost might be photographed, and that no matter if something is real or proved fake, when it comes to spirituality, sometimes belief is stronger than facts.” Ghost Village

Kaplan’s sources provide a rich archive for photographic historians and for scholars interested in the intersection of photography with law, print culture, and the growing professionalization of the art in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Journal of American History

Louis Kaplan is director of the Institute of Communication and Culture at the University of Toronto at Mississauga and associate professor of history and theory of photography and new media in the Graduate Department of Art at the University of Toronto. He is the author of American Exposures: Photography and Community in the Twentieth Century (Minnesota, 2005).

288 pages | 48 b&w photos, 16 color photos | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 | 2008

Source  http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/K/kaplan_strange.html

Reviewed by TimTrain

A photographer operating in Boston and New York during the 1860s, William Mumler provided a questionable service: he would photograph clients in his studio, and present them with portraits in which they were accompanied by semi-visible spirits. Mumler's clientele included many of the richest and most famous of Americans—one portrait has Mary Todd Lincoln seated in front of her dead husband, Abraham,,,were limited to about four a day, and were sold for as high a price as they could get. He was eventually taken to court by the editors of the New York World newspaper, who were aided by the Mayor of New York City.

The documentary material relating to Mumler's career in The Strange Case of William Mumler, Spirit Photographer is fascinating, bemusing, beautiful, technically adept, groundbreaking, and instructive; but it is hardly strange. There is very little that is really strange about the case of William Mumler, for there is probably no artistic medium in the world that has not been used deceptively for the purposes of personal gain. In a twisted way, the case of Mumler is reassuring, for it demonstrates the ease with which a technically-savvy con-man with a can-do spirit can make use of the photographic medium to gull credulous fellow citizens into giving him money. And Mumler's pictures were most assuredly fakes; anyone who has watched a Hollywood film is aware of how easily a picture can be manipulated to produce an illusion.

In The Strange Case of William Mumler, editor Louis Kaplan has compiled a collection of press clippings, photographs, personal biographies of Mumler, along with the criticism the man received from contemporaries (including famous showman P.T. Barnum), and on the whole makes a good show of editorial impartiality. Kaplan claims in his introduction to be interested in the ability of spirit photography to 'construct meaning and value as well as to provoke controversy'; he argues that this 'does not involve affirming or debunking the truth claims of spirit photography…' (4). But the romantic account,,,a twenty-first century ghost story,,,hovers in the background, like the spectre on the cover of the book.

The book itself is written in the wake of a successful exhibition of Mumler's photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and seems to be deliberately structured like a series of museum exhibits. The pictures from Mumler's photographic practice are labelled and cross-referenced within source material that is quoted at length. There are engravings done in imitation of Mumler's work (86), (154); an example of political satire, with photographic material provided by Mumler (66); and, fake spirit photographs compiled by the appropriatetly-named Abraham Bogardus in order to give the lie to real spirit photographs (196).

The Spirits themselves in Mumler's photograph, for all their artificiality, seem to have a will of their own. They are seen strumming the instruments held by their living relatives (190), showering spectral flowers on their shoulders (Plate 3), or leaning on the lap of their estranged mother in prayer (88). Subjects appear accompanied with spirits who may never to have lived in the first place; medium Fanny Conant appears in the company of her favourite spirit, ' Vashti', an Indian child,,,sure enough, bearing feathers about her head (111). In several disturbing pictures, spirits appear bearing the photograph of a living person, rather than that living person themselves; it is as if they have become more substantial than the living, more real than reality (41 & 148). And indeed, Mumler and his clients are really interested in the spirits, the real subject of the photographs; paradoxically, the presence of dead people give life to otherwise dull nineteenth-century portraits.

What did people see in the Spirit photographs? Largely, they saw what they wanted to see, and pointed out to others what they wanted to be seen. A mother recognises a dead child by the length of his ears (151). Mumler claims to take a spirit portrait of one gallery owner and find the devil's hoof hanging over the man's head (85 - 87). P.T. Barnum, meanwhile, relates the story of a sister of a Civil War soldier who, assuming her brother to be dead, goes to a spirit photographer—probably Mumler, though he is not identified as such in Barnum's book,,,for a portrait. The photographer complies, and when she later discovers that her brother is still living, "she simply remarked that some evil spirit had assumed her brother's form in order to deceive her (67).

Appropriately, in these accounts of a man who claimed to be able to photograph ghosts who were beyond life, larger-than-life figures such as P.T. Barnum should appear. In newspaper transcripts of Mumler's court case, both Abraham Bogardus and Barnum give eloquent testimony, the first objecting that one Spirit portrait is a transparent lie, the shadow on the sitter being on one side, and the shadow on the Spirit being on the other" (193). Of course, if normally invisible Spirits can be seen in photographs, one can only assume they will have shadows!

Barnum, meanwhile, encounters rigorous cross-examination in the court on some of his own show-business claims:

I have never been in any humbug business, where I did not give value for the money; these spirit photographs were labelled humbug on the walls of my Museum; the woolly horse was a remarkable reality and curiosity; it was exactly what I represented it to be, having a peculiar form and curled hair; it was exactly a woolly horse; it was not a horse woolled over; the horse was born exactly as he was when exhibited in my Museum, and there was nothing artificial about him (195).

What is the difference between Barnum's flamboyant showmanship and Mumler's business? Barnum seems to have exaggerated the truth deliberately, to have created a fiction for the audience while pointing out that it was a fiction; perhaps Mumler lacked this self-awareness.

It does seem a pity that Kaplan does not really reflect more on how the Mumler photographs were made. It does not harm Mumler's career now, almost 150-years on, to point out that he was faking it. That small caveat aside, this is an entertaining and instructive compilation of material relating to the Mumler case.

His brush with the law took its toll, both to his reputation and to his finances. Mumler never recovered from the $3000 cost of his defense, a staggering sum for its day. He destroyed all of his negatives shortly before his death in 1884.

The Strange Case of William Mumler, Spirit Photographer
(2008)

by Louis Kaplan
University of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816651573
288pp US$24.95
 

Source   http://reviews.media-culture.org.au/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3124

In the spring of 1869, William Mumler appeared before Justice John Dowling in the Court of Special Sessions at the Tombs Police Court in New York for a preliminary hearing on an unusual charge. Mumler had been accused of fraud and larceny for making and selling photographs that purported to bring back the spirits of the dead on glass plate negatives. This sensational and highly publicized case put the religious movement of Spiritualism and its belief in communication with the dead itself on trial. "Documenting Ghosts" will review the contrary claims that were made about what these ghostly photographs documented and proved, whether deemed to be darkroom tricks and manipulations or Spiritualist proofs and images made by supernatural means.

Unknown sitter

Some Photographs by William H Mumler of Boston, then New York, USA.

 

 

 

When William Mumler was a accused of fraud, a hoax photograph was paid for by P. T. Barnum [in the picture] the showman and committed Christian, it was produced by his hired professional photographer, Abraham Bogardus. Barnum paid for the best legal minds available as he had the money to do so and made sure he was there at the trail of William Mumler and produced himself, the photographer and the photograph, to bring him popularity and publicity, using it all to the best of his ability at the trail of William Mumler April 1869 to discredit him, Barnum NEVER attended any sittings at which Mumler produced his Spirit extras on the photographic plates. [William Mumler was not a wealthy man by any means, he was doomed from the start].

 

In 1891 Alfred Russell Wallace, the co-developer of the theory of evolution, threw his hat into the ring by declaring that Spirit Photography should be studied more closely and done so scientifically, as he had been studying it over a number of years, and had come to the conclusion that not all his finding could be put down as hoaxes. Just because some were, did not mean that they all were and his findings could not be dismissed.

Despite of his open comments the Spiritualist community kept their Spirit Photography away from the public gaze for many years. But during that time different photographs of some note crept out into the public arena, some of them could not be explained away even by the skeptics.

 

A quote from Hon. Moses A. Dow who is seated in the photograph with the Spirit extra of his wife taken by William H. Mumler

The picture presents me as sitting upright in a chair, with my legs crossed. My hands lie on my lap, with the fingers locked together. Mabel stands partially behind my right shoulder, dressed in a white, well-fitting robe. Her hair is combed back, and her head is encircled by a wreath of white lilies. Her head inclines forward so as to lay her cheek on my right temple, from which my hair is always parted. Her right hand passes over my left arm, and clasps my hand. Her left hand is seen on my left shoulder, and between the thumb and forefinger of this hand is held an opening moss rosebud, the exact counterpart of the one that I placed there while she lay in the casket, at her funeral. Her head partially covers my forehead, showing that my picture was not taken on a previously prepared

Photograph by William H Mumler is of the Medium Mrs Fannie Conant of the magazine the Banner of Light. The Spirit extra is her brother Charles H Crowell 1868. The Banner of Light was a Spiritual Philosophy newspaper that had all manner of articles ranging from lectures of trance and non trance Spiritualist speakers and reports from eminent scientists of tests conducted on Mediums of the day and mediumistic happenings.  The Message Department of the magazine was described as "a page of Spirit-Messages from the departed to their friends in earth-life, given through the mediumship of Mrs. J. H. Conant, providing direct spirit-intercourse between the Mundane and Super-Mundane Worlds."

Fanny Conant wrote the book, Flashes of Light from the Spirit-World which is a 400-page compilation of questions answered by the Spirits through her Mediumship. The is another book you might want to try and get hold of; The Biography of Mrs. Conant, subtitled Immortality Demonstrated Through Her Mediumship, was published in Boston by W. White in 1873.

This photograph by William H Mumler is of Mrs French from Boston USA with the Spirit extra of her Son,1868.

Some accused Mumler of fraud YET it was said that the two eminent photographers of the day: James W. Black of Boston and Jeremiah Gurney of New York. According to Mumler's 1875 memoir, Black challenged Mumler to take his spirit photograph, and to allow him to examine the entire process. If a Spirit Form was produced, Black would pay Mumler fifty dollars. Mumler accepted the challenge and says when the Spirit of a man appeared beside Black s figure on the negative, "Mr. B., watching with wonder-stricken eyes this development, exclaimed: "My God! Is it possible?"

Gurney, called to investigate Mumler by the New York Sun, later testified that he witnessed Mumler preparing and taking his portrait but did not discover any deception; "in developing the negative," Gurney testified, "I applied the chemicals myself, and upon the negative was a shadowy form."

Photograph by William H Mumler taken of an unknown sitter with two Spirit extras, 1870. USA.

This image is of a normal person who would have come off the streets of Boston into the Mumler studio and the photograph had no celebrity or well known personality impressed on it just the loved ones of the private person, who was one of the many thousands who flocked to the studio to hopefully have superimposed by the Spirit World their own relative or deceased friend on their personal photograph.

Photograph by William H Mumler taken of Captain R Montgomery with his Spirit daughter, 1870. USA.

William H Mumler photographs in the Harpers Weekly. May 8, 1859. USA. 

 For more photographs go to Spirit Photography click here