Mumler Spirit Photography

It's the Civil War, and the nation is in deep mourning. William Mumler of Boston has something to help: "spirit photographs" of you and a deceased loved one. Is it a scam, or is technology now capable of traversing the thin line between life and death? Eventually, it will be up to the court to decide. 

Sources:
Special thanks to u/Naturalog on Reddit and Stephen Berkman
'The Apparitionists' by Peter Manseau
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/meet-mr-mumler-man-who-captured-lincolns-ghost-camera-180965090/ 
https://www.vox.com/22918581/mumler-victorian-spirit-ghost-photography
https://reader.library.cornell.edu/docviewer/digital?id=sat2698811#page/33/mode/1up 
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/when-cameras-took-pictures-of-ghosts/281010/ 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Folks, it's a hug.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
No one I have seen.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Let us have a watch to see you this.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about the lies we wish were.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
True and truths that sound like lies.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm the ghost of Danish Wartz.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
And I'm the evil twin of Lizzie Logan.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Welcome to the show. Before we begin, do we have
any hoaxkeeping?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hoaxkeeping? Just to give everyone a sense of the distance
between when podcast episodes are recorded and when they are released,
this is one of the first episodes that we are
recording after the release of the show. And oh my goodness.
Thanks everyone for checking out the show.

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Speaker 2 (01:03):
That is me, yes, and I'm the one checking the Instagram.
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(01:23):
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Speaker 1 (01:32):
Keep sharing, keep writing, reviewing, subscribing, because we love making
the show and want to keep doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
So thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Well, let's dive into this hoax, which I'm very excited about. Lizzie.
I'm just going to ask you, what do you know
about spirit photography.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Spirit photography, I think came up in our first episode, Yeah,
when we were talking about the Coddingly fairies, and I
mentioned it as something that I found more convincing than
the fairy pictures.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, and it takes a little bit more technical, know how,
which we'll get into.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
I think of spirit photography as like you take a
picture and there's blurs in the background of the picture,
and someone's like, that blur is a ghost, and like,
who am I to say that that blur isn't a ghost?
Or maybe the blur is like a little bit more
defined and it looks like a skeleton or something.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, I'm going to show you an image of a
famous spiritualist named Fanny Knnent with the ghost allegedly of
her brother William. Okay, so that's what this photo is.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Okay, great, So this picture, like all the pictures, will
be available on the Instagram when this episode goes up.
This is a woman in old times clothes and she's
seated and behind.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Her is Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I mean it sort of looks like the outline of
a man, the imprint of a man, the very fuzzy,
faint image of a man.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah. This episode, it's kind of like not to not
to do the I feel like this is like now
a cliche thing, like this episode has everything, but this
episode really is going to be sort of a greatest
Hits of hoaks. We're going to get spiritualists, We're gonna
get P. T. Barnow, and we're gonna get We're getting
a pet Barnum camp. And I've learned more about wet

(03:19):
plate photography than I than I ever thought I would
in my entire life.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
I didn't had not heard the phrase of what plate
photography before today.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
I want to preemptively say there are gonna be people
listening to this podcast who know more about what plate
photography than I do. And if I get anything wrong,
I am genuinely sorry. I tried my best. I also
want to give a shout out to the writer Peter Manso,
who's an author. He wrote a book called The Apparitionists,
which was very helpful in this book, and he's also

(03:49):
just written about spirit photography like all over the internet.
So shout out Peter, thank you for your help. And
also shout out to the Haunted Mansion Ride at Disneyland.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Oh, because the fan of the Haunted Mansion Ride, that's.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
What I think of with spirit photography. You get the
hitchhiking ghosts.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
I will say, I don't know jack nothing about no
wet plate photography, but I love me the Haunted Mansion
Ride before they changed it. I hear now it's like,
you know, lots of three D animations and sort of
movie tie ins and like whatever. I liked the old

(04:23):
school where it was literally just a doom buggy that
went around and you looked at projections and then you
came out the other side and it was like a nothing,
and I loved it.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
I love the lo fi ghost Pepper's ghost effect shout out.
We'll talk about that's not really relevant. We might talk
about that later, but I want to talk about spirit photography.
And a man named William Mummler. He's he's going to
be the main character of Tell Me About It. He
was born in eighteen thirty two, started working in Boston
as a jewelry engraver, which was a real job back then,

(04:55):
like you want like a fancy probably still a job. Yeah,
that's true.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
He could get your like rings engraved with a little message.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
But it felt like at this time there would be
like a straight with multiple engravers. And then he'll work
for an engraver. Later he'll open his own little engraving
company and it's like watches and jewelry and silver filigree. Okay,
but what's happening is he's working as an engraver. He's
inhaling you know, probably like silver filaments and chemicals, like

(05:24):
polishing chemicals, and he gets tummy aches. Yeah. And so
he is also a like amateur chemist, and he is
going to invent a medicine which he'll call the German Remedy,
and he'll advertise it with a fake backstory. I'm going
to quote from his advertisement, which is quote I tried

(05:46):
various doctors and advertised nostrums to no avail. They only
seem to aggravate the disease. I began to despair of
finding relief. When I came into possession of an old
German receipts from an eminent German physician. I made the
medicine and found instant relief. So he sells this. There
was no German receipt or old German country. But what

(06:06):
is in the thing that he's selling, I don't know.
Just like fizzy water, Yeah, I mean I think it
works to some degree. Maybe it's like amateur thumbs, okay,
But he makes enough money from it that then he's
able to open his own engraving studio. Okay. And his
engraving studio is on Washington Street in Boston, and it
happens to be a few doors down from the photography

(06:29):
studio of a woman named Hannah Green Stewart. And this
lady is very pretty. She also works as a spiritualist medium.
Before she got into photography, she had a business braiding
hair for like Victorian memorials, for dead people, like someone
passes away. She'll braid the hair into like a ring

(06:51):
or a locket. Like hair. Jewelry was like a specific
thing that's sweet, which when you think about it, like
this is that this is a remnant of time before
photography was widely available. And so if someone you love
passes away and you have no photos of them, maybe
you know you want a piece of them that you
can keep with you. So hair jewelry was a real

(07:14):
mainstay of Victorian culture.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
I will say I've given locks of my hair to
boys I was dating. They never think it's cute.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
I think that's kind of romantic.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
I know it's the type of thing girls think is
romantic and boys are like, why did you do that?

Speaker 1 (07:30):
Okay, well right, and if you think it's romantic or weird,
but this is what Hannah Green Stewart was doing. She
now has a photography studio, which kind of is it's
not the same as braiding hair for memorial jewelry, but
also it's not that different. You're sort of preserving something
for immortality in a way.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, it's like a keepsake.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
It's a keepsake. And she also is a medium, and
what she'll be is a healing medium, which means that
she'll sort of channel a famous old doctor and like
give medical advice to you via this doctor.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
That is so many layers to this con.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
And it's like is it a con or she just
giving medical advice and pretending that it's from someone else,
which kind of is what Mummler was also doing with
his old German cure. Both a little bit of both. Yeah,
but anyway, the two of them have a lot in common.
He thinks she's really pretty. She's a widow.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
What year are we in at this time.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
We're probably in like eighteen sixties. We actually, I know
we're in the eighteen sixties because Hannah's so like Civil
war exactly civil war, because Hannah has a husband who
is presumed dead, like we just don't have him in
the historical record.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
We know he was to the Civil War and he
never came back.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yes, we think he died. We know he died. We
don't know how he died, Okay, probably.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
And we're in the North, so these people don't own slaves.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
These people do not own slaves. We're in Boston, Uny.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Problematic in that way.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, if they're fighting in the Civil War, they're fighting
on the North. Great and also spiritualists, like we can
get into the word actually very very much in the North.
And at a certain point this isn't a side, but
there was spiritualists who believed that the Confederacy was going
to be using spiritualists and get an advantage from talking

(09:25):
to ghosts, and so they wanted to help the North
by being like, we'll be that the spiritualists on the
North and we'll give you ghost advice. And that didn't
really materialize. So for context about the time period, I
just now want to give a little more context, Like
in the history, what's in the ether, what's so the

(09:45):
Civil War is happening, but electricity is still relatively novel.
So the idea that there are forces that exist in
the world that you can't see with the naked eye
is not like a crazy thing that exist.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Oh sure, I mean I guess if like you, like
if you were born at a time when it was
like gas lamps are the only type of lamp, and
then you now live in a time when it's like
electricity exists, I guess you're like, I guess there's a
bunch of things that exist that we just I didn't
know existed when I was growing up.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Well, a point that Mumbler will make later is that
electricity is something that you can't necessarily see with the
naked eye, but with a long enough exposure time you
can photograph. Very true so there are things that you
can't see that in theory you can photograph. That's an
idea question.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yes, when is Frankenstein.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Written eighteen oh eight?

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Okay, because doesn't he try to do that with electricity?

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Okay, when do they do the first X ray?

Speaker 1 (10:50):
I don't know. Okay, isn't no more about Frankenstein than
X rays.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Because it's not electricity with X rays. But isn't like
taking a picture of someone's insides without cutting them open.
That to me is like crazy new technology.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Okay, the first X ray is not going to be
until eighteen ninety five. Okay, I'm not super relevant to this,
but you know, what does happen around this time.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
I'm just saying like, these are things that if I
were in that time, I would be like, I guess
anything's possible.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
The first telegraph is going to be sent the you
know Morse and his telegraph is being sent in eighteen
forty four, and so, okay, he's gonna be able to
send it, the first to ever telegraph that more sends
from Washington, d C. To Baltimore. The message is what
hath God wrought? Which feels so negative and ominous, and

(11:35):
I think they meant it positively, like what hath God
wrought new technology? But doesn't it sound so ominous?

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah, wasn't the first phone call like get in here
or something. I think the first phone call was like,
oh my God, come here, like I really think it was.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
But also this idea with the telegraph is communication is
going to be happening faster and in a way that
seemingly was impossible, and so it doesn't really feel like
a big leap where if you can communicate between two
places almost instantaneously, why couldn't you communicate between realms.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
And things you can't see?

Speaker 1 (12:15):
And the idea of the telegraph is also what's going
to lead to the beginning of spiritualism in eighteen forty eight,
and the kind of real kickoff of spiritualism happens when
these sisters in Hydesville, New York, like upstate New York,
the Fox Sisters do what they call it rapping, like
they hear like a like bang bang bang, like a

(12:36):
crack in their house and they're like it's ghosts, And
it became a whole thing. Really they were just cracking
their knuckles. I mean, I could we might do another
hoax about this. Obviously it wasn't really, but they in
their minds they'll later say, well, it's like Morse is
communicating you know, telegraph with the beeps beeeps and yay. Yeah,
and so it's like ghosts could also communicate with with
bang bang bangs. It starts the spiritualism movement. Another thing

(13:01):
that's a factor to the spiritualism movement is post industrial Revolution.
More people can read and they have the leisure time
to do it, and so there's a lot of new
ideas spreading really fast. There are multiple spiritualist specific newspapers
that are going to spread news and ideas and that's
going to be an important part of this story later.

(13:22):
So all for context, Spiritualism.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Is good context come into this.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, spiritualism is sort of capturing the country. New ideas
are proliferating. People think it's possible because like we don't know,
technology is interesting and that.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
And also the Civil War is happening eighteen sixty one
to eighteen sixty five, like around seven hundred thousand people die.
Like there is enormous grief happening in the country right now.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
And like what if you could talk to them?

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, yeah, So Mummler, this engraver starts hanging around Hannah
single you know missus, but she is single, and he
kind of threw osmosis and hanging out with this hot
lady learns the basics of wet plate photography, which is
the sort of newer iteration of the dagera type that
allows you to do it faster, so people don't have

(14:14):
to sit still for half an hour. Now you can
sit still for like a minute and take a photo.
And what you do just this is the most basic
cursory overview of wet plate photography is you take a glass,
you coat it with kelodeon, which is like a gooy
chemical mixture of ether and other chemicals, and then you
bathe it in a silver iodine mixture which will make

(14:35):
it light sensitive. Then you put it in a container
that blocks all the light, and then you put it
in a camera. And then when you remove the thing
in front of the lens, the light of whatever is
in front of the camera will imprint now on this
glass that's been made light sensitive, Sit for a full minute,
close the lens, bring it back to a dark room,
cover it and developing solution. Rinse the plate with water

(14:57):
to stop the development, and then you can e or
fix it on the glass or print it onto paper.
Very basic. That's sort of the process. Last sensities it
to light, expose it to an image, develop it.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
This to me is exactly in romy and Michelle's high
school reunion when she explains how post its are made.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
I invented wet plate photography. So Mumler apparently is. I
want to be clear, a lot of this is from
his account, sure, and he's someone who's going to say
spirit photography is real, so he's spoilers. She's a liar.

(15:37):
I liked the book The Apparitionists a lot. I think
one place that the book was sort of lacking a
bit for me is interrogating Mumler's own accounts because he
is a known liar. He's like a demonstrable liar. So
just keep in mind that a lot of this is
coming from his account of how this happened. He says

(15:59):
he was just messing around in Hannah's studio, decided to
take a picture of himself self portrait, just felthy selfie,
And when he developed the glass and saw on the negative,
oh my god, a girl appeared beside me. And I'm
gonna show you this photograph that he took in eighteen
sixty two. This is the he claims, the first photograph

(16:20):
he ever took.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
You want to describe it, Okay, I have so many questions. Yeah,
so he is standing next to a chair, and sitting
in the chair is a fuzzy, bleached out girl of
maybe ten.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
And I mean, first of all, if he was like
if he took the photograph, like like who was taking
the well he did he just you can just you
can just lift the thing and then go pose and
then go put the thing back.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
It takes long enough. Like you know, he stands it.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
I don't believe that he didn't think anybody else was
there because he's posing next to what he thought was
an empty chair, which clearly he left enough exactly enough
room for someone to sit in it. Like it is
really frame exactly enough room for the for someone to
be sitting between the chair and the table. The thing
is framed such that it would look like such a

(17:19):
weird photo if nobody else was there. Well, like he
clearly thinks there's gonna be somebody else in the photo.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
Well that's what he says. He says he was just
messing around and isn't it weird someone else was in
this photo? He assumes, again his account, it makes no
sense that he improperly cleaned the glass, which is a
thing that happened, because I remember we went through this process.
If you hadn't cleaned the glass, well, the imprint of
a former photograph might still be on the glass. So

(17:46):
he's like, oh, maybe again, he says, maybe I just
didn't clean the glass. Well enough, isn't this silly? What
a what a silly photo I took? But he shows
it to Hannah the spiritualist, and she goes, Okay, that's
a ghost. He is not entirely convinced by his own account,
but still thinks it's interesting and transfers it to a
paper to show friends who might stop by. And one

(18:08):
of those people who stops by just happens to be
this noted spiritualist named doctor Gardner, and he just happens
to stop by a few days later, Mumler shows him
the photo, and he claimed Mumler claims that he was
only showing Gardner the photo to like have a little
fun at his expense, because at this point Mumler is
not a spiritualist. Okay, Gardner takes this photo and is like,

(18:32):
oh my god, this is amazing. Tell me how you
did this? Leaves And then next thing, Mumler knows there's
something written about this photograph in the Herald of Progress,
which is a spiritualist newspaper in New York. And Mumler
claims that he was mortified seeing this because he's you know,
He's like, well, I don't know anything about spiritualism. I

(18:52):
don't know that this is a ghost. He felt misrepresented.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
I'm just a rational man dating a hot spiritualist messing
around with her spirit photography tools in her spirit lab,
showing her showing my results to her noted spiritualist friends.
Exactly how could that possibly have ended up with me
in the newspaper?

Speaker 1 (19:13):
But then lo and behold the Banner of Light, which
is a Boston spiritualist newspaper, publishes the account with more detail,
including where at Hanna of Light.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
Is like still a name that people would give to
like a QAnon. Yeah, Like Banner of Light is like
what a scientology newspaper would be called.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yeah, Banner of Light. Lo and behold, spiritualists now flocked
to the studio. So he just shows back up and
is like oh no, look at this. All these spiritualists
are coming to mine and Hannah's studio and also we're
getting married. Oh cool, so she's the uh missus missus mumbler. Now.

(19:59):
But gard remember when I told you about those Fox
girls who were doing the wrapping. Gardner had also sort
of advocated them, and then there was a committee of professors,
including Harvard professors, who investigated them and disproved that they
were ghosts wrapping and figured out that it was just
the girls cracking their knuckles underneath their dresses. So I

(20:22):
think Gardner might have been a little like, you know,
once bitten twice shy and wants to make sure that
these spirit photos that he's championing are quote unquote real.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Is Gardner sort of like the opera of his day,
where he's like, I found some interesting people and then
he's like, hmm, interesting person, you lied like sit on
my couch and cry about it.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, except I think he would be more upset when
it's not real. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
I thought Oprah got pretty mad at that.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
James Try. Yeah, yeah, that's true. He probably felt very
betrayed at these teen girls who pulled a prank on him.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
It's good, Frank.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah. Well, he decides that he wants to get his
photo taken. He sure gets his spirit photo taken with
a deceased son who had died years before, and so
he's like, wow, this is convincing. But he wants to
make double shore. So he brings another photograph of him
with some ghosts behind him to a photography expert in Boston, J. W. Blair.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Oh, so, what do you mean, like with a deceased son,
like a spirit photo.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
He gets a spirit photo. Mumler takes his photo, so.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
You can ask for a specific ghost to be in
your photo.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
Well, that's this is the key, now, Okay. I didn't
mention by the time that that Gardner takes the Mumbler's
photo and is showing it to all the other spiritualists.
Mumler goes, Oh my god, that's not just anyone. That's
my cousin who died. I recognize her. Now, okay, so
you're getting a photo not just with a random hitch.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Like your love family member.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Who is coming to be with you.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Great.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
So Gardner gets his photo taken and oh my god,
it's my dead son.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
And it looks just like him.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
It looks just like his dead son.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
See that is like hard to fake, yeah, because you
know what that person looks like.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
You know what that person looks like. We're gonna get
to that a little bit, okay, but he's convinced this
is my dead son. Amazing. He brings one of his
photos that Mumler took to this photography expert JW. Black
and asks him would you be able to make a
similar one? And Black is like, no, I would know how.
And this is like an experienced photographer. He was the

(22:34):
first guy to take a picture in a hot air
balloon in eighteen sixty.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Cool.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
So he's doing a lot of stuff. He's been taking
photos for twenty years. And Black sends his assistant, a
man named Horace Weston, to go to Mumler's studio conveniently
just a few blocks away, and Weston gets a spirit
photograph taken and he's like, that's my dad who died.
Convincing yeah, And he comes back to Black in the

(22:58):
studio and is like, I don't know how he did it,
and everyone at this photography studio kind of laughs at
him because he's like, obviously it's not a ghost. But
he's like, I'm convinced. So this assistant goes back to
Mumler's studio with word from Black and says, if you
let him watch every step in your process and you
get a spirit in the photo, he'll give you fifty dollars,

(23:19):
which is like two thousand dollars today.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
And Mumbler's like, bring him over. And Black goes over
watches Mumbler and he says, take apart my camera if
you want, and Black is like, nope, that's okay, and
he's like, but I no photography, so i'll see if
you do any funny business. Anyway, he takes the photo
and a spirit shows up, and to be fair, you know,

(23:45):
he gets the photograph, he offers Mumbler the money. Mumbler says, no, no,
thank you. I don't need it. I'm just doing my
humble duty as a as a spiritualist, and I just
wanted like Black didn't really inspect the equipment. He was
kind of cocky because he's like, I'm an experienced photographer
and this guy's an amateur. Mumler had, you know, prepped

(24:05):
all of his equipment in advance. He's using his own
camera and tools and chemicals, and Black thought that Mumler
was kind of too dumb to tinker with it in
a meaningful way. But we also know that Mummler like
is this amateur chemist and like you know, it's a
technology guy. So it's not really like a scientific test.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
No, but but he did check it out.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
But he checked it out. And it's interesting that a
photographer shows up sees this process and is there are
no red flags going off?

Speaker 2 (24:36):
I mean, to me, the more impressive thing is that,
like you can get an image of a dead person
that is convincing to someone who remembers what that person
looked like.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah, obviously, thanks to spiritualist papers word of mouth, Mumbler
becomes incredibly indemanded popular. He claims again that he's like,
I was only going to do these spirit photographs two
hours a day because the spirits get tired. Is good
to die. The demand means I have to do more.
So he starts charging ten dollars, which is like three

(25:07):
hundred dollars today, So he becomes really successful. He marries
Hannah Green Stewart. Now she's missus Mumler, and now they're
a pair, and she as a medium will describe the
spirit who's hanging around before the photo comes, she'll be like, oh,
I see like a young woman hanging around you. And
he doesn't always produce a spirit photo, which makes people

(25:29):
think he's for real, right.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Because the spirits are are difficult. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
An abolitionist newspaper called The Liberator will investigate him and
say the medium's air and manner, his non success, his
disappointment all indicate reality. And Mumbler's big defense is that, look,
people can photograph things that you can't see, like electricity,
and also people are really happy and satisfied. I'm providing

(25:57):
this service where people are losing loved ones, loved ones
that maybe they never got a photo of or with,
and they find they get one photo with them for
once in their life.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
And it is like he's making money, but like sort
of on a scale of like hugster to creep, Like
it's a little less harmful than being like, I have
a message from your loved one, you know what I mean.
He's not convincing them that they can talk to the dead.
He's just like giving them a piece of paper with
a nice picture on it.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Although Hannah Mummler will sometimes be like, can they say
this see?

Speaker 2 (26:31):
I think that's kind of crossing a line.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
But it becomes successful enough that he closes his engraver
shop and the Mumblers are doing this full time. This
is a political cartoon from Harper's Weekly that I think
is very funny. It is a put cartoon in two panels.
The first one is like a dapper man getting his
photo taken at Mumler's, and the caption is mister Dobbs,

(26:53):
at the request of his affianced sits for his photograph
unconsciously happens in at Mumbo. And then the second panel
is result portrait of Dobbs with his five deceased wives
in spiritu oh no, oh horror, and that he accidentally
got a portrait taking a Mumbler's with his with five
dead wives and horrifying his affianced.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
That'd be like a good sketch.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, it's silly, Yep, funny, all political cartoon. So Momliir
is in the ether. Yep, he's in the in the space.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
So it's like it's like a he's like the guy
from Catfish.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah, yeah, he's the guy. Yeah. Some spiritualists are skeptical,
so Fanny Connant, who is a which you think that
spiritualist would be fully on his side.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
I love the idea of other freaking like liars being like, no,
you're trigging people. I'm really talking to ghosts.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
But truly, I think they think that spiritualism is something
to take like very seriously, and they don't want something
that can be disproven muddying the waters. Yeah. So Fanny Konnent,
who's a big medium writing for Banner of Light, speaking
through a medium, So this isn't her saying this. She
says there is much that is genuine, true beyond the

(28:11):
possibility of doubt surrounding this recent unfoldment of spirit power.
There is also much that is untrue and which has
its origin not in the world spiritual, but in the
world material. Inasmuch as you have the faculty to divide
the right from the wrong, the false from the genuine,
it is your duty to exercise it and to weigh

(28:34):
the balances of your own judgment all that is presented
to you from the spirit world or from the world
in which you now live. So she's just basically being like,
some things are true, some things are false. Figure it out.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Uh. Yeah, that is generally a good perspective to have.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
She could not be covering her bases more.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
That is such a statement. It's almost like she didn't
say anything.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Well, she didn't. The ghost that she was speaking through
said it.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
Why would you travel all the way from the nether
world to say that?

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Uh well, just to make that important point so true,
The editor of the Herald of Progress, Andrew Jackson Davis,
decides that he wants to send someone to investigate, and
so he sends this photographer from New Orleans named William.
I think the name is pronounced guy, But how would
you pronounce that name? G u a y?

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Gay gay? Why why I think it's guy. I'm gonna
say guy. If it's gay, I apologize, but gay guy
gey guy. Guy writes back to the Herald of Progress
and says he investigated every step of the process very
thoroughly and tells Davis in a letter that he fully
endorses its legitimacy.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
All right, people are trying.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
People are trying. And Mombler also from this point on
will say Black investigated me, JW. Black, and this guy
investigated me. So he doesn't let anyone else investigate him.
He says that the spirits would become quote disgusted by
the mortal need for proof that they'll stop showing up.
So he's like, these two people investigated me. They're you know,

(30:13):
well known and of experts, so no more.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
I mean a little bit.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
I get that.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
It's like at some point, like trying to prove ghosts
is sort of a fool's errand and like it's your
ten bucks. If you want ten bucks for a ghost photo,
you have to sort of take an internal investigation and
not like you can't go find proof of an afterlife
in like a guy's camera shop.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
That's true, this guy guy is also kind of a
shady character because for an unbiased, you know, impartial investigator,
he's gonna come work for Mumbler right now. So he
teams up with Mumler, and with working together, they expand
the business and they also make it like more theatrical.

(30:58):
They also start a male order business, so you send
a description of your loved one and seven dollars and
fifty cents and they'll mail you the picture back.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
Dumb p. T.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
Barnum actually requests one and has some Mumbler spirit photographs
in his museum in New York, the American Museum. But
Barnum's attitude is very like, I don't know it's interesting.
It's a very like Ripley's believe it or not attitude
in his museum, where he's like, I'm not saying it's
true or falls. I'm just saying it's interest thing.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, yeah, and I guess it is.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
So the most notable thing about Mumbler, and the thing
that convinces people that it might be real, is the
fact that it's like you're getting a photo with a
loved one that there might not have even been any
photos taken of period. So how do they do that?

Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, that's what I want to know.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
Well, I'm gonna say, if it's someone that there have
been no photos of period and you haven't seen them
in years.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Okay, you might, you might not remember what they look like.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
I think we're really used to seeing lots of photos
of people we know in love. Yeah, And if it's
been years since your lovedn was gone and you do
not have a picture of them, and you see a
very hazy outline, like I'm gonna show you this random
Like it's pretty hazy, it's pretty faint. You can project
whatever you want onto them.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
And like, especially if you're not rich and you didn't
have like an oil painting of them or even like
a sketch of them, you know, like like literally, these
are things I know from Noble Blood where you know,
what's his face. King Henry the bad Guy was like,
send me an oil painting of her so I know
if she's pretty and yeah, and it's like, oh yeah,

(32:52):
because you would have to know what people look like.
The only way that you could get a picture of
a person from one place to another was like have
a full oilting done. And that's the plot of Portrait of.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
A Lady on Fire. Well, so this is going to
lead to a little bit of trouble for Mumler. A
man visits the studio, sees like the gallery of other
ghost pictures and happened to see that one of the
ghost figures is his own wife. I was about that,
and she is alive and had also had a photo

(33:25):
taken at Mummler studio actually back when it was Hannah's studio,
before this whole spirit photo was taken. And what I
love is he says that she remembered the sitting so
well because she had worn a distinctive hat and didn't
like it and then hated the photos, which is so
funny to me, because who among us hasn't been like, ooh,
I'm getting a photo taken. I'll try a new hat

(33:46):
and then you're like, oh, no, I'm not a hat person.
And the hat, the distinctive hat, was in the spirit pot.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
And you can tell that he was like a really
good husband because he listened when she was complaining about
her hats. And I can totally imagine like a sitcom
husband being like, who when when my wife can't stop
talking about her hat, and he's like not paying attention,
He's just like watching the eighteen sixties version of sports.
But like he listened, He listened. This is why you

(34:12):
have to listen to your wife when she's complaining about
how much she wishes she didn't wear her hat, is
because sometimes you end up busting open a conspiracy.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
And this guy actually was a spiritualist and said he
had been really excited that these photos might have been real,
but spiritualists need to be diligent about the facts. The
Herald of Progress around this time revokes Guy's endorsement, and
they basically say that we had not had a long
or intimate acquaintance with mister g. We had felt satisfied

(34:42):
of his integrity, But we're persuaded that our endorsement was
a little premature. So we're not saying he was deliberately untruthful,
but we don't hesitate to say that he is not
a strong enough witness to say that like he's you know,
fully reliable. So we're just with drawing our endorsement of it.

(35:02):
What also is about to happen is a woman sent
a spirit photo that she had taken and a photo
of her mom that she actually had a photo of
her mom who died, and sent the photos to the
Banner of Light to be like, hey, what do you
guys think, what are you at this spiritualist newspaper? Think
of this comparison? Like it kind of looks like my mom, right,

(35:22):
this like blurry, indiscriminate, you know, white form sort of
looks like my mom. And so these two photos are
kind of hanging around the office and an editor happens
to see them and is like that ghost looks familiar
and goes to a friend. You also had a spirit
photo taken, and it was like this same ghost, the
same ghosts both photos.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
Because like kind of a lot of moms look away.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Well, just like it's also hazy it's very you know,
these photos are really washed out. And then a third
friend sees the pictures and knows who the He's like, oh,
I know who that ghost is, and she's alive. And
then she had the exact same photo of herself that
she had taken at the gallery. Mumler does not defend
himself at all. He just quiets down and doesn't do anything.

(36:12):
The banner of light that this spiritual newspaper launches this
anti Mumler campaign, you know, withdrew the endorsement, drag his
reputation through the mud. Doctor Gardner turns against him. He
just sort of withdraws from the spotlight. By the end
of eighteen sixty five, there are just no more accounts
of Mumler taking photos in Boston. He's making a little

(36:32):
money selling like illustrations and edited photos. What happens is
the Civil War is one yay yay. And there's a
story about how Jefferson Davis, when he was running away,
wore his wife's clothes to try to get away. And
so isn't it silly that this Confederate general they caught
him and he was wearing his wife's dress. Yeah, he
wasn't he wore his like wife's coat. Okay, but it's

(36:54):
like the Northerners selling political cartoons. He was like an address. Yeah,
and so Mumbler like makes some money sell it this
like spliced illustration of like the real Jefferson Davis's head
and uh, you know, an illustration of the dress. That's
it's like a fun sake to have. Yeah, it's actually
like a pretty clever photo manipulation. So it's like he's

(37:14):
good at this. Yeah, he's making memes of the day,
he's making he's selling memes.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
He's selling memes.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
Guy goes back to Louisiana, opens his own photo studio
that it goes broke, and then he comes back to
the Mummlers and convinces William Mumler to give Spirit photography
another try. Move into New York City, let's get out
of Boston. So in begin we're gonna try it again
in eighteen sixty eight.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
I guess if you now have all these pictures of
people from Boston who nobody's gonna recognize, yeah, it's all
the way in New York you can you can sort
of reuse them and maybe it'll last a little longer
before you get caught, so.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Let's go on down to New York. They in eighteen
sixty eight they borrow a studio from another photographer named W. W. Silva,
never changed the name on the door, so it's like
a little under the radar, gotta like. And it's pretty
near Barnum's American Museum, which had burned down in a
fire was then rebuilt. So all those Mumbler photos.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
First, yes, I remember that plot point from the mediocre musical.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Yeah, so at first Silver is not happy that his
name is going to be associated with spirit photography. But
then he gets his spirit photo taken and he's like, well,
I'm convinced. And what happened is enough people are heartbroken
from the Civil War that Mummer becomes very very popular again.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Oh okay, people get these photos.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
The spiritualist population, ironically, like the establishment of the Spiritualism movement,
is I would say, ambivalent to unhappy about this. They
the New York Spiritualist Conference tries to send in a
committee to investigate, which Mumbler refuses unless they pay for
all their pictures in advance, and they pass a resolution

(38:58):
basically saying like Mumler is not willing to be investigated
so we're not we can't like endorse him.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
I know, but also like get creative, like you can
investigate without like a like go undercover.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Well, Lizzie, what is that what they do? Momler?

Speaker 2 (39:16):
I think it's just like send a pretty girl to
like like be like tell me about your things, about
your process. Yeah, like how do camera work.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Well it's not going to be a pretty girl, but
it is going to be a journalist. Yes, so, Momler
I think is very proud of himself as a photographer.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
And he submits several of his best spirit photos to
be displayed in the photographic sections March eighteen seventy nine
convocation at Cooper Union, so basically like a convention for photographers.
And he's you know, proud because he sees them as
a application of technology. And he also defends what he's

(39:53):
doing with the spear photos as comforting people. He says,
what joy to the troubled heart, what balm to the
eight breast? Okay, this man, Patrick V. Hickey sees the exhibition.
He's the science correspondent for the New York World, and
he decides he's going to investigate. He's also a Catholic.

(40:14):
He's a very Catholic boy. Yeah, so he's not happy
about this. He decides that he's going to investigate. He
goes to Mumler's studio, I guess Silver studio and decides
that he's just gonna watch what happens. And what he
doesn't like is that he's being peer pressured by like
quote unquote fellow customers who like feel like they're paid.

(40:36):
Patsy's like another customer sitting in the waiting room is like, oh,
ten dollars for a dozen images. Many persons would gladly
give a thousand dollars to obtain the likeness of a
deceased friend or relative. And You're like, you're being pushy.
And also the assistant who lets him in says, oh, yeah,
my name is Silver, but really it's Guy. But he's

(40:57):
going by Silver now. And he listens as assistant are
pressing sitters for detailed physical descriptions of their loved ones
to be like, oh, what color was their hair? And
so he's watching, he sees that Mummler and his you know,
female assistant who presumably is Hannah, are like very particular
about where they pose people. He he smells something fishy.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
He's seeing the tricks of the trades.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
So he goes down to the newly elected Mayor's office,
the new mayor Abraham Oak, who incidentally hates the Mayor
of New York the mayor of New York City.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
I don't know what other mayor I thought it would be,
but I felt they need to clarify the.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Mayor of New York City. And incidentally, this mayor has
political opponent to our spiritualists just sort of wants to,
you know, thumb it to them.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
Cool.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
The mayor sends his marshal named Joseph H. Tucker, which
is like TJ. Hooker. Tucker goes in with a fake name,
asks for a photo with his father in law, gets
the photo, says that's not my father in law, and
arrests Mumbler for fraud, for ghost fraud, for ghost fraud.

(42:09):
Because he's saying, you will I'm going to take a
photo of you with your father in law. That's what
you're paying for, and he's like, that is not a
photo of my father in law. This is fraud. I'm
arresting you for ghost fraud.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
Feels like that should not be a matter for the police.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
Well, it goes to court. Mumler plea not guilty. Yep,
gets a fight like a guy whose nickname is the
fighting lawyer, John D. Townsend.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
You would think they would all kind of be that, but.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
He is like a famous criminal defense attorney who gets
people off for murder. Okay, And the prosecution is led
by a man named Elbridge Gary. Does that name sound familiar.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
Dana, you know it does not? Okay, Well, we're talking
about nineteenth century New York City attorneys.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Well, he's the grandson of James Madison's vice president, Elbridge Gary.
Who's the person who jerry mandering is named after? James
Madison's vice pre jerry mandering. Everyone knows what jerry mandering is.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Did I know that was named after I know what
jerry mandering is.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
There's a John Mullaney bit.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
Did I know that jerry mandering was named after a person?
I did not?

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Okay, Well it is, but it should be Gary Mandering
because it's named after Elbridge Gary.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
Well, the trial begins, or the preliminary hearing before they
would send the case. The grand jury begins April twenty first,
eighteen sixty nine. And really they say that he's committing
fraud and theft.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
I mean he is. But again like, okay, well we're
doing it.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
Okay, Okay, they are proving if he is faking these
ghosts photos, it is fraud. And so they have to
prove that he's faking these ghost photos and as opposed
to the fact that these ghost photos are real. That
is the trial.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Okay, great, Great.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
The judge is named Judge Joseph Dowling.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
I'm very gonna be like of dowl the Mambering and I.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Should know that. Yeah, you should know. You know, nineteen.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Cents Dowling Court and the Dowling versus the Board of Education.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
Uh No, I've never heard of him before. Okay, it
just seems like a nice judge. I guess, I don't know,
you might be really problematic. And then I'm sorry I
said that. But the prosecute cancel basically comes up with
all these ways that Mummler could have faked these photos. Cool,
and as it turns out.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
I would enjoy being on this prosecutorial team.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
It's not that hard to fake a ghost photo of Court.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
I mean, are you Yeah, you just leave a little
bit of the last photo there, You just don't wipe
all of it off, right, and then you just do
the next photo.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
So that's the thing. No, because like people when they're investigating,
they said they cleaned the photo, they cleaned the.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Glasses, but you just don't clean that well, right, But that.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
Is actually not how they're doing it, because it's like
if someone's investigating, they're going to be like that better
be a clean glass. Clean clean clean. So you're like, well,
how are you.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Doing Okay, then how are they doing it?

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Well, there's a few ways. The easiest way is just
having someone behind you for a second and then just
like run, yeah, because it's the exposure time is so
long that if you're only there for like a bit
and then you leave, it'll be blurry and translucent. But
presumably that's not how they're doing it because someone would
hear or notice, and also because now we know that

(45:38):
they're repeating ghosts. Yes, So basically, okay, they come up
with these nine different ways that I'm going to read
through and try to explain in I don't know, as
simple a way as I can, which is that there's
a positive slide in the plate holder in the camera
in front of the sensitive plate, and this is how
I think he is doing it, which basically, once you

(46:01):
make the glass plate light sensitive. If you show it
another image, that image will be imprinted on the glass.
So when he is bringing the clean new glass plate
over to the camera, he is really, you know, for
a few seconds, having a photo like a photo negative

(46:22):
of whatever he wants the ghost to be imprinting on it.
So it's basically a double exposure. It's going that the
plate is going to I'm putting this inn air quotes
to see the picture of the ghost and then take
the picture of the person, and then they're going to
be on the same negative, gotcha. And what's amazing about
that is then when the negative is developed, you see
both ghosts at the same time. Yeah, because it also

(46:45):
is very easy to layer two negatives on top of
each other and then print a photo with both. But
some of the amazing thing that Mummler would do is
you would see the developed negative with both ghosts. Ah.
So maybe when he was doing the male order one,
he would just layer two negatives to print it because
that might be easier or quicker, But that wasn't what

(47:06):
he was doing when people were in the studio. So
they also say, you know, the prosecution says a ghost
figure in white could be introduced for a moment before
the sitter and then withdrawn, which I don't think is
what he was doing, but that is a method called
Sir David Brewster's ghost. They say a microscopic picture of
the spirit form could be in the camera box alongside

(47:26):
the lens. That could happen also possible the glass with
the spirit image is placed behind the sensitive plate after
the sitting and then impressed on the plate, which also
is possible. Basically another image is being impressed on the
same plate, either before or after the photo was taken.
They also say the silver nitrate bath could have a
glass side and the image be impressed by a secret light,

(47:50):
which that one feels a little like elaborate and tricky
and unnecessarily complicated.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
It's like very like like James Bond Villain. There's another
photo lab in the floor.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
They say that the plate could be prepared with a
quote dry process with the spirit form, and then later
the living sitter is on the same plate, which is
basically like the dirty plate theory, which again pretty easy
and happens all the time by accident, like oh I
didn't clean my glass plate. Well r. They say you
could take a negative of the ghost and then take

(48:23):
a positive from the negative, And to be honest, I
don't understand what that means, but they have all these measures. Basically,
it's it's a fairly simple double exposure. At some point
in the process, it's doable. At some point in the process.
He has these these negatives from old photos of people
they've taken, and now they have a big catalog of

(48:43):
photos they've taken. So it's like, oh, you're looking for
your wife, do you remember what she looks like? Oh,
brown hair, one of those. And magazines are writing about
this at the time, and in the magazine The Illustrated Photographer,
someone who goes by Cardinal writes in and says he
had a trick of how he would take photos of
people with animal heads on the same negative that would

(49:06):
develop to be like, haha, I'm going to take a
photo of you cue, but it shows you how you
really are. Oh, and then it's like they show up
and he describes the process of that in detail, and
it's like, I used to do this all the time.
It's really easy. Yeah. I want to also thank the
person the user on Reddit Naturalogue who found that in
a discussion on spirit photography.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
So shout out to you think you read it.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
And again, these people have not seen their loved ones
in a long time, probably never had a photo of
them at all. Most of the photos are pretty washed
out and nondescript.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
And it's also like, you know, you always look a
little different in photos than you look in the mirror. Yeah,
so it's like you're seeing yourself in a photo for
the first time and you're like, well, I look a
little different, So maybe Teresa looks a little different.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
And also, also, ghosts aren't real.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
I don't even know if ghost aren't real, but I
know they don't show up in photographs taken like this.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
This is the Pet Barnum cammyon And.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
I know that, And I know that ghosts aren't like
silver people floating around. Yeah, Like that's just not how
that would work.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
Yeah, when I say ghosts aren't real, I mean Mummler
was not taking photos of you.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
Like, I don't know what happens to the soul after
you die, but I know that it doesn't look like
your body.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
But see through. Well. Pt Barnum agrees with you, and
he becomes a witness for the prosecution.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
He well, that's fucking stupid. Don't listen to the acund Well.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Pet Barnum is like, these photos aren't real, and he
brings in a photo of himself with the ghosts of
Abraham Lincoln food in the background, just to prove how
easy it is to get a spirit photo taken.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
And he said, it doesn't even look like anything that
looks like that looks like Lincoln. No, I mean it does,
but I'm saying that that just looks like a photo
of pet Barnum that someone doodled on, Like that doesn't
look like a faked spirit photo. That just looks like
a photo that somebody like did like a Lincoln smudge.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
Well, okay, okay, he even says, because they're like, aren't
you you know he says, I've never been in the
humbug business. I have always given people the worth for
their money. Because he's like, I just present things to
entertain people. I'm not claiming your senior dead relatives.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
This sounds like to like, this is like doctor Phil
having a fight with doctor Oz. Like this is like
where I'm just like, okay, I don't I guess you
guys give different advice, but like, just you should both
shut up.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
Do you think if you were the judge, would you
be convinced.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
By this by P. T. Barnum specifically just by the
way of the evidence, Yes, but I don't know, like
what like, I don't know that it like rises to
the level of like illegal fraud.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
But it's not. It's not the question of whether it
rises to the level of fraud, it's if he is
is he faking these photos?

Speaker 2 (51:54):
Yeah, because it's not ghosts. Well, the because I would say,
like I would like to know which one. I would
just say, like, bring that fucking camera into court and
take it apart and show me which one it is, Like,
don't give me nine options. Like I'm the judge and
I subpoena that camera and I want to know which
one it is, and that's my ruling, is.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
The judge, Well, they don't do that. Well, that's crazy.
The defense lawyer, this fighting lawyer who gets men off
for murder, gets Marshall, took her on the stand and
proves that he doesn't know what his father in law
looked like he was like it turns out that ticker
never actually met his father in law.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Well was this stupid? That was a stupid investigation for
him to run?

Speaker 1 (52:40):
Then why are you stupid.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Why on earth did he choose that example?

Speaker 1 (52:45):
Terrible example? And then he talks about because all these
people are like, well, I'm a good Christian, I don't
believe in ghosts. And he finds all these Bible passages
that mentioned spirits, because like, spirits are in the Bible.
And this lawyer also says, okay, in Mumler's defense, when
you show up, he says, they never guarantee that you'll
get a spirit. They just say, like, sometimes you get

(53:06):
a spirit. So it's not fraud because they're not guaranteeing anything.
They're just saying, and you can't prove how it's done.
You're just proving that there are like nine different ways
someone can do it. Yeah, So you're not proving that
it's not real. Yeah, And so Mommar gets off the judge.
This is how the judge, I mean, yeah, because yeah,
will you read this is the judge's ruling.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
However, I might believe that trick and deception has been
practiced by the prisoner. As I sit here in my
capacity of magistrate, I am compelled to decide that the
prosecution has failed to prove the case. Yeah, I mean, listen,
that's in our legal system. The burden of proof is
on the prosecution.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
Yeah, Mumler moves back to Boston. He keeps taking spirit photographs,
keeps doing it by mail, but.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
With he's not making these people pay for this.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
Exactly, but with less attention, the interest and spiritualism is
kind of waning, you know. Hannah keeps working as this
like spiritual healer with like what she calls like magnetism.
Mumbler gets more interested in the science side of photography,
which is another possible way of how he did it,
which is just somehow controlling the chemical reaction for the

(54:18):
double exposure in ways that like I just I don't know.
He invents a thing called the Mummler process, which is
what allows newspapers to print directly from photos before you
need like someone to copy it or engrave it in wood.
And he invents the like electrochemical process that allows newspapers

(54:40):
to actually print images.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
So he like contributed to society like a ton.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
When he dies in eighteen eighty four, fifteen years after
his trial, his obituary barely mentions the spirit photography. They said.
It says William H. Mumler, a well known inventor and
treasurer of the Photo Electrotype Company, which is the Mumbler
Process Company, died at his residence. He had much inventive
genius and a taste for experiment, which finally resulted in

(55:09):
the discovery of what is known as the Mumbler process,
which blah blah blah, and then at the last end
and it goes. The deceased at one time gained considerable
notoriety in connection with spirit photographs. Like he I think
what he did was technologically impressive. I think he probably
used They're all these different ways of taking spirit photos.
I think he used probably a few of them based

(55:32):
on who was watching at the time and which way
would be least detecting. What was interesting is they always
appeared on the same negative. Yeah, which is like the
interesting thing he was doing. But this is a man
who knows his way around camera technology. Yeah. So even
though he sort of withdrew from the public eye and

(55:52):
public you know, spiritualist communities, he's going to take his
most famous spirit photo three years after the trial, and
it's I'm going to show you this photo.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Is this famous by Dana standards? Or Am I going
to recognize this?

Speaker 1 (56:09):
I think you might recognize this. Do you recognize that
woman or the person behind him, behind her, behind her?

Speaker 2 (56:16):
Thank you the Well maybe it's just because you put
it in my head, but the guy looks like Lincoln.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
It's Lincoln, okay, And he guesses on who you think
that is?

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Is that Mary Todd?

Speaker 1 (56:25):
That is Mary Todd Lincoln. Three years after this trial,
Mary Todd Lincoln goes to Mummler for a spirit photo.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
This is said I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Lincoln had been assassinated seven years before. Mary Todd had
actually gone to Mumler one time earlier in eighteen sixty
nine to get a photo with her brother, Captain Todd,
who I think her half brothers actually fought for the Confederacy,
but uh, he was presumed dead and got a spirit
photo of him, and then it turns out he was

(56:55):
actually alive.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Oh no.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
The photo wasn't publicized out of respect for Lincoln's reelection
campaign happening at the time, because it was like crazy
Mary Todd, always doing her thing with an embarrassing family.
But also clearly the fact that they took a photo
of a ghost who was alive did not dissuade her
from this. And she goes back to Mumler. She clearly
knew about the trial, they claimed the Mumlerts claim that

(57:19):
she used a false name and they didn't recognize her
except Hannah saw the ghost of Lincoln hanging around, and
so that's how they knew who she was. Maybe, but
they get this photo of her, and it's kind of
the most famous spirit photo that exists because it's Mary
Todd Lincoln and the ghost or ghost form of Abraham

(57:41):
Lincoln with his hands on her shoulder.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Yeah, it's very sweet. That's that's kord of comforting her.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
Sort of the story of Mumbler and spirit photography. Lizzie,
how bad of a hoax do you think it is,
you know, on the scale of a hoax of flim flame.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
I'd say it's somewhere in the middle.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
I think it is funny that that Barnum was against
him in a in a Doctor Phil, doctor Oz. It's
very alien verse predator.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
It is alien versus predator. I mean, this is the
thing that I always and it like reminded me of
like all those AI startups that are gonna let you
like talk to dead people, and I'm like, that's so gross.
This is the this is the thing that I struggle
with with things that supposedly bring people comfort. Yeah, because

(58:34):
that's an argument or no. No, I don't want to
say argument because it sounds like I'm like in conflict
with people when I'm really just like having discussions with
my friends. But like that is a sort of point
people bring up about like astrology or even like religion,
but not like I don't have a problem with religion,
because that's like an entire belief system, but like various

(58:55):
beliefs that people have that I sort of think are
like a little bit shaky where they're like, oh, well,
it's like comforting to go to a psychic or a
medium or a clairvoyant or whatever, and when people are
in grief or when people are really confused, or when
people are like going through a breakup or this, that

(59:17):
and the other, and if it brings them clarity or
it brings them comfort, like isn't that a good thing?
And my sort of like counterpoint to that is, like
that is exactly when you shouldn't take money from people
is when they're vulnerable, Like that's exactly when you shouldn't
take advantage of people, is when they're in the midst

(59:38):
of grief, like that's exactly when you shouldn't lie to
people at the same time, like Jesus, who am I
to say that a Civil war widow isn't allowed to
get their picture taken like man like spend your ten bucks,
Like I'm I do not judge the war widow. And
I'm also certainly not in a position to be like

(59:59):
and you're a victim, and he was taking advantage of
those people, like you know what, like whatever, it's ten bucks,
like it's a it's a picture, like it is a memento.
It's a memento at the end of the day, like
it probably is harmless, like I'm not gonna get my
panties in a twist over pictures.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
I mean, that really is kind of where I stand,
because it's like at this is an era where you
don't have things to hold on too of your loved one,
Like if you've never taken a photo with them, you
don't like anything.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
You have, like their jacket or like the wrote you
oh yeah, if.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
They died in the Civil War, you wouldn't have gotten
their hair, Like you wouldn't have even hair jewelry to
make you might not get a memento that like to
take a photo with them is a thing you can
have and keep. But then it's isn't it kind of
fucked up that it's like now I have this photo
of like you know, me and just some random.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
Guy, and that this person is like claiming is a ghost.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
Yeah, I like a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
It's like I don't blame them, for lack of a
better word, the people who do this. It's like a
little shame on you one more.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
It's weird. It's like I understand like why it was popular.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
It shouldn't have gone to trial, but it did.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
Yeah, it's like weird to make it a legality thing,
and it was.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
Sort of spiritualism on trial.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
It's spiritualism on trial. I mean. My thing is like
to get around the whole legality thing and like just
offer refunds, like I don't know, if someone finds out
their photos fake, like I don't know, offer people's money
back and then you are allowed to operate in peace.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
But they also always said you might not get a
spirit photo, and so it's like you didn't get a
spirit photo, you got a dirty plate with some random persons,
like you know, like whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Yeah, so like I don't I don't think it's like
the worst thing in the world because it's not like
an on you know, it's not one of those ongoing
things where you claim that you can talk to someone
and they come back week after.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Week and give you more and more money.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
And you know you have sort of this like ongoing relationships,
Like it's a one time memento. No one's going broke,
and no one's going broke, no one's driving themselves crazy,
no one's living in delusion, and no one's like basing
their entire worldview on like no like the ghost is
around or whatever. Like I mean, if you believe that
you know your loved one is with you in spirit,

(01:02:19):
like please go on believing that and like communicating with them.
Just like don't give a random stranger with a shop
money about it, like you know what I mean, Like
have that in your heart, not like in your pocket book,
but so like yeah, like ninety percent harmless ten percent,
like don't set up a business based on taking people's

(01:02:40):
money for their loved ones. Like I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Agree with that. Well, that is the story of Mamler,
an accomplished chemist and photographer.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
That's very cool, like honestly, And the other thing is
like Trick photography school.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
What I kind of find not ironic, that's not the
right word. But interesting is that as the person who
developed the Mumbler process, which meant that newspapers can now
have photos. That's very cool. But he sort of ushered
in this like seeing is believing era. We're a photo
is news and now we have to see it. And

(01:03:16):
he knew more than anyone that photos can be faked,
and especially now with like AI photos. I just think
it's sort of I guess it is ironic.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
That's really played both sides.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
Yeah, that's someone whose fortune was in faking photos also
was key to creating the era where photos made news real.
And if you know how they do the hitchhiking ghosts
at the Hunted Mansion, right in and tell me. I
know how they do the Walton ghosts in the ballroom.

(01:03:47):
That's just a Pepper's ghost illusion, which means they have
like mannequins behind plexiglass. That's fun. I want to know
how they do the hitchhiking ghosts.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
I've like watched a YouTube on how they do the
hitchhiking ghost but I don't remember what it was.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Lizzie, where can the people find you. Do you have
an Instagram account? Now I do.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
It's private at the moment, but if you quest to
follow me, I'll probably just.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
Let you, or just follow the Hoax account.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Yeah, I'll you could definitely follow the Hoax account.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
That's Lizzie.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
That's also me doing that, So if you message it,
that's me. It's at Hoax the podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
I'm Danas Schwartz with three z's and you can always
email hoaxthpodcast at gmail dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
And rate review, subscribe on all the podcast platforms and
we'll be back in two weeks.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Hoax Responsibly Bye.

Speaker 3 (01:04:40):
Hoax is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our hosts are
Danish Schwartz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt
Frederick and Trevor Young, with supervising producer Rima L. K
Ali and producers Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk. Our theme
music was composed by Lane Montgomery. For more podcasts from
iHeartRadio is the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

(01:05:02):
get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
Thanks for listening. Thank you