The Apparitionists

by Peter Manseau

  “How much were you charged?” he asked.

  “They charged me $10 for the first sitting, and $5 for each of the others. I watched the operator closely while he was taking the picture, but could detect no fraud; of course, with my limited knowledge of the photographic art, I would not have been able to tell if he had used fraudulent means to effect his end. I have no definite opinion as to these pictures, having many years ago made up my mind never to form an opinion without knowledge; invariably, when I have done so, I have made an ass of myself.”

  But was he a believer, Gerry wanted to know, or was he not?

  “I believe that the camera can take a photograph of a spirit, and I believe also that spirits have materiality—not that gross materiality that mortals possess, but still they are material enough to be visible to the human eye, for I have seen them.

  “Only a few days since I was in a court in Brooklyn, when a suit against a life assurance company for the amount claimed to be due on a certain policy was being heard. Looking toward that part of the court-room occupied by the jury, I saw the spirit of the man whose death was the basis of the suit. The spirit told me the circumstances connected with the death; he said that the suit was groundless, that the claimant was not entitled to recover from the company, and said that he (the man whose spirit was speaking) had committed suicide under certain circumstances. I drew a diagram of the place at which his death occurred, and on showing it to the counsel, was told that it was exact in every particular. I had never seen the place nor the man, nor had I ever heard his name until I entered that courtroom; the appearance of the spirit was shadowy and transparent; I could see material objects through it.”

  Prosecutor Gerry had shown Judge Edmonds all due deference, but he could not resist pressing him for details on this fantastic story, no matter that it did not have immediate bearing on the trial at hand.

  “How do spirits dress?” he asked. “Or do they dress?”

  “I have seen spirits clothed in their everyday dress and in their grave clothing,” Edmonds replied, “but never saw one without clothing.”

  “Are you able to define the meaning of the word ‘hallucination’?” Gerry asked.

  “It is a word difficult to define excepting by illustration. About as fair a case as I can give is that of Othello, who laboured under an idea that his wife was unfaithful to him. Hallucination is a phase of insanity. It arises from some imaginary or erroneous idea.” His own communications with the dead, he insisted, were quite different. They had arisen not from error, he believed, but out of love.

  Though Gerry had attempted to make Edmonds look foolish by lingering on the subject of the kinds of garments spirits might wear, his testimony was on the whole persuasive to those who heard it. Even Marshal Tooker, who had arrested Mumler and bore no sympathy for Spiritualism, could not help but feel fondness for the aging judge.

  “I was impressed by the appearance in the case and the testimony of Judge Edmonds,” Tooker later said. “He was an able jurist, and, even with his idiosyncrasies, commanded the respect of the Bar and the people . . . I suppose that there are many other prominent men who give a friendly consideration to the claims of Spiritualism, but we don’t suspect them, because they secretly fondle their belief. Once in a while one is honest enough or brave enough to declare himself. Others would do so, but they shrink from probable ridicule.”

  Mrs. Tinkham with a spirit she recognized as her child. William Mumler, 1862–1875.

  CHAPTER 22

  Are You a Spiritualist in Any Degree?

  THE FIRST EXPERT witness for the defense, William Slee, had traveled from Poughkeepsie to speak as an authority on the photographic process. He was one of a pair of brothers operating a respected studio in the small city a half day’s journey north of Manhattan, and had been in business for more than a decade—long enough, Mumler’s lawyers said, to speak conclusively about the technical aspects of photography and to demonstrate that they had not been manipulated at 630 Broadway.

  Throughout the 1860s, Slee Brothers Photography had attempted to popularize porcelaintypes and ivorytypes, novelty items that involved applying images on materials other than glass. In this effort they met with limited success, but the Slees had prospered in Poughkeepsie in part thanks to Vassar Female College, established not long after the brothers opened their doors. They regularly made pictures of the college’s founder, the wealthy former brewer Matthew Vassar, as well as official images of faculty members, both male and female, and many buildings on the growing campus. This ongoing association was an inspiration to some at the school, which soon began suggesting photography as a practical use of artistic talent.

  “Women have long printed photographs, retouched negatives, and colored vignettes with an excellent finish,” noted a college miscellany published during Slee Brothers’ heyday in Poughkeepsie, “and now—here I expect to shock the nerves of the sensitive—some are taking charge of photographic galleries. ‘A lady photographer!’ it is exclaimed, ‘may the fates deliver us!’ Yes, it is a pity to change . . . It will require time, but photography promises to be one of the most appropriate occupations for women.”

  William Slee was not opposed to such inevitable social changes, nor to innovative uses of his art. He had been moved to investigate Mumler much as Tooker and Hickey had, though for reasons of professional curiosity rather than civic duty or theological pique.

  “Have you had any experience with regard to this so-called spirit photography?” Mumler’s attorney Albert Day asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Slee said. “I visited Mr. Mumler’s gallery to see what I might learn with regard to it. I went to the premises of 630 Broadway on invitation of Mumler, and also for the purpose of thoroughly examining the process of taking spiritual photographs as closely and minutely as I possibly could. Mr. Mumler sat me three different times, and each time I watched him very closely, and also closely scrutinized the process of taking the photograph. I did not notice anything unusual or different from the regular process in the operation, with the exception that I remarked that he put his hand on the camera, that was the only unusual thing I noticed. On a subsequent occasion, Mr Mumler visited me at my gallery in Poughkeepsie, and then I told Mr. Mumler that I was anxious to see—”

  “Objection,” prosecutor Gerry said. Anything that transpired in Poughkeepsie, he insisted, should be inadmissible. The complaint against Mumler had concerned only his actions in New York City.

  “I have no objection to allow the widest possible latitude to the elucidation of this singular case,” Judge Dowling responded, “and for the purpose of getting out all the facts connected with it.”

  But Gerry persisted: “The question of what transpired at the witness’s gallery at Poughkeepsie is totally irrelevant to the issue before the court,” he said. “The question now under discussion is as to what transpired at the defendant’s gallery at Broadway.”

  “The only way of getting at all the facts,” Dowling repeated with some impatience, “is to allow the fullest latitude at this investigation.”

  His opponent duly chastened, Day resumed his line of questioning.

  “What occurred on the occasion of Mr. Mumler’s visit to your place of business in Poughkeepsie?”

  “Mr. Mumler called on me at my gallery,” Slee said, “and used my materials during the process of the sittings that ensued from beginning to end, including my camera, chemicals, glass, and all other appliances necessary to the production of photographs. During his subsequent operations I watched him intensely, and the only unusual circumstances that I observed was his placing his hands on the camera, as I had before observed in New York, and the spirit photographs were produced.”

  When Day had finished with his expert witness, Gerry rose to ask questions of his own, which at first had little to do with photography.

  “Are you a believer in the existence of spirits in the popular sense of the term?”

  “Objection,” Day said. “The question and answer are not material
for the inquiry.”

  “Oh, I know spirits are not material.” Gerry laughed. “Material or immaterial as spirits may be, I submit my question is material and bears upon the issue.”

  Dowling agreed to admit the question.

  “I don’t believe in anything I don’t see evidence of,” Slee answered.

  “Do you believe in the existence of spirits?” Gerry asked again.

  “Do you mean ardent or liquor spirits?”

  “Come, sir. You understand what spirits I mean. I don’t mean alcoholic spirits, nor spirits from the vasty deep that won’t come. Answer the question.”

  “Witness,” the judge interjected, “the question has nothing to do with the popular beverage known as ardent spirits. You are asked if you believe in the existence of spirits in the popular use of the term.”

  “That’s what puzzles me, your honor,” Slee said. “More people, to my mind, believe in alcoholic spirits that in any other kind of spirits. But if counsel means spirits from the other world, I answer I do not fully believe in Spiritualism.”

  “Are you a Spiritualist, sir?” Gerry asked. “Yes or no. Answer.”

  “I hardly know in what degree of Spiritualism you mean.”

  “Are you a Spiritualist in any degree?”

  “I am. I believe in the spiritual manifestations I have seen.”

  “Do you believe in spirit photography?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What else in the way of spirits do you believe?”

  “Well, that is again pretty general. There are a great many kinds of spirits.”

  “I speak of spirit manifestations.”

  Slee now spoke slowly, measuring his words. “Well, spirits, as a general thing, operate differently on individuals. I have seen spirit manifestations produced by some power beyond the control of human agency.”

  “How long have you been a believer in this spiritual power or agency that you allude to?”

  “Several years.”

  “Prior to the date when you called upon Mr. Mumler, had you ever attempted to take spiritual photographs yourself?”

  “No.”

  “After you went to see Mumler experiment on these spirit photographs, did you go into a darkroom and see the collodion put on the plates?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you examine the collodion put on the plates?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you examine the plates before the collodion was poured?”

  “I saw him clean the plates.”

  “Did you examine the plates in the light?”

  “I saw him prepare the plates.”

  “But you did not examine the plates yourself?”

  “No.”

  Gerry walked Slee through the entire elaborate process, demanding to know which side of the glass plates had been submerged in the cyanide bath, how they were placed in the camera’s plate holder, and how long each image was exposed.

  “How long was the glass allowed to remain in the camera?” Gerry asked.

  “I think twenty-five seconds,” Slee said.

  “And is that not five seconds longer than the usual time?”

  “No. I think from twenty to forty seconds is the average time.”

  Then the prosecutor changed course. He produced a photograph showing an image much like the ones Mumler had made: a clear seated figure in the foreground, shadowed by a ghostly shape lingering behind and above.

  “Look at that,” Gerry demanded, “and say if that can be produced by mechanical means.”

  “Objection,” Albert Day said. The photograph was not one of Mumler’s, yet now it was being examined as if it were a crucial piece of evidence.

  “The witness was placed on the stand as an expert,” Gerry said, “and as an expert his opinion is admissible on this point.”

  “Overruled,” Judge Dowling said.

  For a long moment, Slee studied the photograph in his hands. The scientific processes to which he had devoted the past decade of his life were almost limitless in the effects they could achieve. In their studio in Poughkeepsie he and his brother had mastered the craft of affixing perfect images to any smooth surface. For the college’s astronomy department he had even begun taking pictures of the sun, a task requiring just the right composition, calculations, and talent to produce an image no frail human eye could otherwise look upon. A skilled operator could create any image desired; was that not a testimony to his art’s potential?

  “Look at that,” Gerry said again, “and state if such a picture could be produced by chemical means.”

  “It would be difficult,” Slee admitted, “but I think it could.”

  Unidentified man with three spirit images of children. William Mumler, 1862–1875.

  CHAPTER 23

  An Old, Moth-Eaten Cloak

  THOUGH CALLED AS a witness to speak on William Mumler’s behalf, miniature artist Samuel Fanshaw had ample reason to dislike the accused. To Fanshaw, a man like Mumler might have represented not only the demise of his profession, but a mockery of even more personal pain. Yet the artist had become a believer in the powers of the photographer seated before Judge Dowling.

  Before the rise of studio photography in the middle of the century, and particularly of the inexpensive, playing-card-size cartes de visite, only Americans of means could afford to commission images of themselves and their loved ones. They did so mainly through the services of miniature portrait painters like Fanshaw, artists whose skill was the compression of detail onto surfaces a quarter or a tenth the size of the subject, and often considerably smaller.

  For decades, miniatures were hugely popular among the upper crust, but most of the practitioners of the art had taken it up solely as a practical matter. As an early-twentieth-century history of New York put it, “Lack of appreciation of art for its own sake” had “restricted painters to the field of portraiture.” Artists lucky enough to find themselves in the picturesque northern portions of the state might aspire to create the grand, light-filled landscapes of the Hudson River School. Closer to the city, the choice painters faced was either to act as a mirror to the rich, or to starve among the poor.

  At least that choice had been available to portrait artists before photography came along. Afterward, everything changed about those who wanted to own pictures of themselves and how they went about getting them. For a time, miniature artists attempted to mimic the sharp features of the daguerreotype in hopes of competing, but this was a lost cause. “The miniature in the presence of the photograph was like a bird before a snake,” one art historian said; “it was fascinated—even to the fatal point of imitation—then it was swallowed.”

  A dapper man of fifty-five from Westchester County, Fanshaw looked if not swallowed, then certainly stricken. He wore a look of loss about him, but modeled it with an aesthete’s easy grace. According to a biographical note in an overview of the New York art world written shortly after his death, “In his earlier professional life, he was a prominent member of the group of clever artists which included Shumway, White, Officer, Cummings, Newcombe and others”—the cream of the city’s painting scene in the 1840s. Prospering for a time, he had “successfully practiced the then favourable and fashionable art of Miniature Painting.” Through the middle decades of the century, “many graceful portraits from his facile pencil” had been displayed in exhibitions throughout the city.

  But then the world turned. Even his formidable skill was no match for the fine detail and endless reproducibility of images made by a camera. “Upon the decline and practical extinction of his charming art through the advent of the Photograph,” his biographer noted, “he, like others in his special walk, adapted himself to the altered demands of the age.” He became a colorist peddling “improved photographs,” resigned to a life spent dabbing tinted ink on images made by others.

  Obsolete though his talents now were, he had been called to testify in court precisely for his expertise in making images uncanny in their resemblance to reality.


  “I am a miniature and portrait painter,” he said in response to defense attorney Day’s first question, “and have been such for thirty-five years.”

  During this long career, one of the most popular services miniature painters offered was the memorial portrait: small keepsake images often set in brooches and worn as jewelry as a form of decorative mourning. A gifted painter could capture the spirit of a deceased relative so completely that the portrait would serve as a tool not only of remembrance but of genuine solace. With rumors of the possibilities of spirit photography spreading through the city, even this niche seemed to be closing.

  Like others before him, Fanshaw had gone to the gallery at 630 Broadway to investigate, specifically to see if the images in question could have been created through some clever combination of painting and photography. But he did not detect a miniature artist’s hand in Mumler’s ghosts. “A picture copied from a picture would not be blurred like those of Mr. Mumler’s spirit, but distinct, though faint,” he said.

  Nor did he see evidence of any mechanical manipulation. “I sat for my picture, watching Mumler’s operations carefully,” he explained. Most of the spirit photographs he had seen showed subjects facing the camera full on, but he suspected doing so might allow hidden props to be moved into view behind him by means of levers or pulleys operating without his knowledge. Fanshaw insisted his photograph should be taken in profile, so that he could keep one eye trained in each direction.

  “I looked all round the room,” he added, “but detected no machinery.”

  After the sitting, Mumler presented Fanshaw with the glass plate, which showed a form other than his own.

  And did he recognize the image put before him? Day asked.

  “I recognized it as my mother, and my sisters have recognized it in the printed picture. She was sixty-five when she died,” he said. “Dead twenty-eight years.”

  He knew her face well, not only as a son, but as an artist. A posthumous portrait he had painted of her hung in his studio; he looked at it every day. But it was not possible, he insisted, that the photographer had made use of this other image. “The spirit picture is in a different position,” he said, and it represented his mother during her last illness, rather than the more youthful portrait he had made from memory.