William H. Mumler

Common card · No. 417569

William H. Mumler (1832–1884) was an American spirit photographer who worked in New York City and Boston producing photos which showed a living person posed with shadowy or translucent human image that was promoted as the spirit of ghost of a deceased person. Mumler's first spirit photograph was apparently an accident—a self-portrait which, when developed, also revealed what he claimed was the spirt of his deceased cousin. Mumler then left his job as an engraver to pursue spirit photography full-time, taking advantage of the large number of people who had lost relatives in the American Civil War. His two most famous images are the photograph of Mary Todd Lincoln with the ghost of her husband Abraham Lincoln and the portrait of Master Herrod, a medium, with three spirit guides. Mumler was eventually taken to court and tried for fraud and larceny. Noted showman P. T. Barnum testified against him. He was later acquitted by a judge, and his photography career continued. Mumler's photographs...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Harper's Magazine (Life time: 1869), Public domain