| Description |
1 online resource (1 audio file (9hr., 31 min.)) : digital. |
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digital digital recording rda |
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data file rda |
| Access |
Digital content provided by hoopla. |
| Performer |
Narrated by Jefferson Mays. |
| Summary |
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 amidst 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 |
| System Details |
Mode of access: World Wide Web. |
| Subject |
Mumler, William H.
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Photographers -- United States -- Biography.
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Psychics -- United States -- Biography.
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Spirit photography -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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| Added Author |
Mays, Jefferson. Narrator.
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hoopla digital.
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| ISBN |
9781501966736 (sound recording : hoopla Audio Book) |
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1501966731 (sound recording : hoopla Audio Book) |
| Music No. |
MWT13536190 |
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