After the Civil War, the field of photography took a deplorable turn. Many families had lost loved ones and wanted some memento of their existence. The bulk of the two armies were men from working class backgrounds who could not afford to have portraits of themselves taken. So, when they were killed, their passing was only recorded in letters and family bibles.

When there is a need, conmen will arrive to fill that need.

So many people wanted a photograph of their deceased veterans that a legion of spirit photographer rose to the occasion. For a fee, these photographers claimed they could manipulate the ‘other side’ and have the ‘spirt of the deceased’ appear in a photograph with a living relative. The best known of these ‘spirit photographers’ was William H. Mumler. He claimed his first spirit photograph was of himself and an evanescent appearance of a figure he claimed to his deceased cousin. He used this photograph to convince gullible patrons  their deceased relatives could be captured on film.

His most famous alleged to be spirit photograph was that of Mary Lincoln with an eerie specter of Abraham hovering over her shoulder.  Mumler claimed he did not know his photographic subject was Mary Lincoln, which is hard to believe as Mary Lincoln was one of the most identifiable personages of her era. While the figure in the spiritual background had a similarity to the deceased President of the United States, it was Mumler’s wife who convinced Mary Lincoln the apparition was indeed that of her murdered husband.

For a while, Mumler’s business boomed. Until 1869 when it was revealed that some of the ghostly apparitions were actually living people and others were reproductions of photographs Mumler had stolen from his patrons when he broke into their homes. He was charged with fraud. And one of the witnesses against him, ironically, was the master of fraud and duplicity himself, P. T. Barnum. Mumler was found not guilty of fraud but it ruined him. He died in poverty.

www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi