The Apparitionists
A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost
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The Apparitionists
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Narrated by:
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Jefferson Mays
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By:
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Peter Manseau
A story of faith and fraud in post-Civil War America, told through the lens of a photographer who claimed he could capture images of the dead
In the early days of photography, in the death-strewn wake of the Civil War, one man seized America's imagination. A "spirit photographer", William Mumler took portrait photographs that featured the ghostly presence of a lost loved one alongside the living subject. Mumler was a sensation: The affluent and influential came calling, including Mary Todd Lincoln, who arrived at his studio in disguise amid rumors of seances in the White House.
Peter Manseau brilliantly captures a nation wracked with grief and hungry for proof of the existence of ghosts and for contact with their dead husbands and sons. It took a circus-like trial of Mumler on fraud charges, starring P. T. Barnum for the prosecution, to expose a fault line of doubt and manipulation. And even then the judge sided with the defense - nobody ever solved the mystery of his spirit photography.
This forgotten puzzle offers a vivid snapshot of America at a crossroads in its history, a nation in thrall to new technology while clinging desperately to belief.
©2017 Peter Manseau (P)2017 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
