Download The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost AudioBook Free
A account of beliefs and scams in post-Civil Battle America, advised through the lens of a photographer who stated he could catch images of the dead In the first days of picture taking, in the death-strewn wake of the Civil Battle, one man seized America's thoughts. A "spirit photographer", William Mumler required portrait photographs that highlighted the ghostly presence of a lost loved one alongside the living subject. Mumler was a feeling: The affluent and important came phoning, including Mary Todd Lincoln, who arrived at his studio room in disguise amid gossips of seances in the White House. Peter Manseau brilliantly captures a land wracked with grief and hungry for proof of the lifestyle of ghosts and then for connection with their dead husbands and sons. It required a circus-like trial of Mumler on scams charges, starring P. T. Barnum for the prosecution, to expose a mistake line of doubt and manipulation. And in many cases then your judge sided with the security - nobody ever solved the enigma of his soul photography. This ignored puzzle offers a stunning snapshot of America at a crossroads in its record, a land in thrall to new technology while clinging desperately to belief.
