William Mumler, who had made a name for himself as an unsuccessful entrepreneur in the field of chemistry before the Civil War, left behind the days of chasing fame with the stomach medicines he invented and moved towards becoming a phenomenon that marked America’s post-war period. And for a very strange reason!
Mumler, who was born in France in 1839 and opened the doors of photography, which was gradually becoming popular in America at that time, looked at this new adventure not only as an ordinary photo shoot, but also as a means of communicating with the other world.
Things took a completely different turn for William Mumler in the mid-19th century, when he noticed a mysterious human silhouette, as if made of light, in a shot of him posing alone.
Mumler convinced himself that this strange creature was a ghost. After this incident, Mumler showed this mysterious photo to a spiritual friend of his and convinced him that this ghost was real. At this point, Mumler decided to turn a new page in his life and stepped into spirit photography.
The photographer, who decided to focus on this field after his previous unsuccessful attempts, introduced himself by placing advertisements in popular newspapers. In this way, his name became widely known and his work attracted the attention of many people.
People who were trying to cope with the pain of losing their loved ones, especially due to the war, began to flock to Mumler’s photography studio to see their loved ones one last time. Because they all thought they would see a soul in the photographs.
Mumler; He managed to convince his customers that the human silhouettes appearing in the photographs belonged to the souls of their relatives.
People who believed in this event saw the photographs taken by Mumler as something otherworldly when they encountered this experience that they had never encountered before during this extraordinary period. However, another interesting detail was this: In the photographs taken by Mumler, people whom the person taking the photograph did not know could also appear as spirits. This was just the beginning of Mumler’s controversial career in spirit photography.
It was quite possible for a different ghost to appear unexpectedly in the photograph of someone who wanted to establish a connection with the spirit of his son. The interesting thing is that when such disruptions were combined with William Mumler’s increasing fame, allegations of fraud against him naturally began to spread rapidly. In fact, other photographers of the period visited Mumler’s studio, observed his fraud methods firsthand and shared this situation with people.
Strangely enough, despite all this, there was no decrease in the number of customers.
Despite all the controversy and criticism, people who had lost loved ones still flocked to the studio in the hope of connecting with them. Perhaps Mumler’s photographs were providing some consolation to people during this difficult time. Otherwise, there was no other explanation for deliberately wishing. This being the case, do not think that everything went well; Sooner or later, Mumler’s fraud would be revealed through a fraud he made.
The first thing that strengthened the allegations of fraud against the photographer was the fact that the “ghost” appearing in a photograph he took was actually a living person.
A woman who wanted to see her brother again, whom she lost during the war, went to Mumler and wanted to take a photo. As usual, Mumler fulfilled its customer’s request. But after a short while, when the woman’s brother returned safely, it became clear that this was a hoax. He deceived the people, who were interested in spiritualism after the civil war, with the developing photography technology and made the people believe this. This was probably achieved by turning the appropriate poses given by someone he agreed with into a ghost image using various techniques and manipulations.
It’s not just limited to that. Another man also appealed to Mumler to have his deceased wife appear in the photograph.
Mumler took the photo, unaware of everything. However, there was something he missed; he was unaware that it would be learned that the ghost in the photo was actually alive. This incident confirmed allegations of fraud against Mumler and led to the famous spirit photographer being closely watched by skeptical eyes. Realizing that his fraud would soon come to light, Mumler moved from Boston to New York.
In 1869, he was arrested on charges of forgery, but the court jury was of the opinion that the photographer was innocent. Jurors believed that Mumler truly had a special talent for photographing spirits. Because Mumler was never caught “red-handed”, so he was not punished in court and continued to live his life in Boston.
There is no evidence of how he added photographs of dead people to the photographs he took; he probably manipulated the photographs using techniques that no one knew in this period when photography was just developing; Thus, he was defrauding people.
Let’s give you some interesting information: the most famous client of this photographer was Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of former US President Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated. In 1870, Lincoln went to Mumler’s studio and created an immortal painting with the soul of Abraham Lincoln in the same frame!
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