For those of you who’d like to preview a leetle excerpt, here’s one of our most-beloved chapters, complete with spirit photography, ghosts, and a fainting spell.

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HEINRICH GEIST IS A LARGE, BEWISKERED MAN, younger and stouter than I’d imagined. Under caterpillar eyebrows, his eyes are blunt as bullets. I imagine those eyes staring at us now through his camera lens, and a chill creeps up the back of my neck.

Crammed onto one side of the gravy-brown love seat in Geist’s sunlit parlor, which serves as his studio, with the perfume of Aunt Clara’s oiled ringlets sticky in the air, I wish I’d had a bite to eat this morning. But I’d simply been too nervous. I was ten years old the last time I sat for a formal photograph. Even now I can almost feel the press of Toby’s hand slipped into mine, for comfort.

“Chin up,” he’d told me. “A weak chin is the sign of a traitor.”

“Another minute,” commands Geist, his voice muffled under the drop cloth.

I hold my chin high.

Standing behind me, Quinn exhales through his nostrils, signaling his displeasure.

Today is January the eighteenth in the new year of 1865. “A significant date,” Geist had assured us as he’d ushered us into his sunny parlor, “for communing with our departed.”

Quinn had snorted at that, too.

“Your folly surprises me,” my cousin had rebuked when I’d first approached him. “Photographers are opportunists. Like cockroaches on the battlefield, scurrying for their capital on the dead. A boy’s face for sale to his grieving family makes a tidy profit.”

“Mr. Geist is more than a photographer. He is a medium.” I’d shown Quinn the business card Geist had enclosed with his reply to my letter. “And Father’s friends at the Swedenborgian church aren’t charlatans—they were kind to me when I asked about Mr. Geist. I’m sure he’ll be a gentleman as well.”

“Perhaps.” Quinn’s lips had tightened to signal his doubt. “But most mediums are frauds who’d steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes.”

“Yet the movement has believers,” I’d insisted. “And Mr. Geist writes in his letter that the more family I bring, the better our luck. Come with us, please?”

“It’s nonsense that Mother and Father agreed to such claptrap. But I’ll do it for you, Jennie. Know that.” His silver eyes had been steady on mine, and in a tingling moment I knew that Quinn hadn’t forgotten that kiss after all.

Blushing, I’d dropped my eyes to study the laces on my shoes. “Thank you, Cousin.”

In the end, I rationalized, he’d probably relented only to relieve his boredom. There are only so many trips around a garden that a young man can make. I hoped it was a good sign that Quinn was looking to become more sociable again.

My own reservations have more to do with money. Five dollars seems like an extravagance for a single portrait seating, and Geist had requested that we pay five more when we are delivered a photograph. I can’t help but think of the warm winter cloak, new hat, and boots I could have enjoyed for the same price.

Services will be Promptly rendered, but with no Assurance of Spiritual Communication, Geist had clarified in his letter.

But this first attempt at spiritual communication is anything but otherworldly. My eyes itch, while my face is stiff as a cold caramel. Only a few minutes have gone by, but it feels like an eternity.

“Persevere, family,” Geist intones. “William Pritchett is close at hand.”

Will has never seemed so far away. He’d laugh to see us now. How fascinated he’d be with Geist’s instrument and tripod. What amusement he’d take in Aunt, who holds one of his Harvard photographs balanced upright on her plump knees.

According to Geist, the photograph provides passage for Will’s spirit to enter this gathering of Aunt Clara, Uncle Henry, Quinn, and me. “The deceased are drawn to their loved ones like butterflies to sugar water. Our beloved often appear to us through vapor or mist,” Geist had clarified. “Other times, another passed soul—such as an angel or a Native Indian—is sent to serve as messenger.”

This had provoked a dramatic gasp from Aunt Clara, who has a fondness for angels.

Now Geist jumps out from under the muslin drape and darts around to the front of the camera.

“Oh, dear. Is something broken?” squeaks Aunt through gritted teeth.

“Not at all.” Geist fits the cap on the lens then slides a rectangular plate into the body of the instrument. “Exposure to the light is crucial to our success. But now we’re finished. I have cut the light. The butterfly is in the net, so to speak. You are free to move. I feel certain that William Pritchett was with us! Did you sense it?” His eyes rove the room as if following a starling. Then he slips behind the camera and removes a wooden box, the same dimensions of the plate, from its body.

Geist then hands the contraption to his waiting housemaid, who scurries off with it at once.

“A most confounded thing,” declares Uncle Henry, “but I experienced a tickling in my fingers.”

“A chill down my neck, perhaps,” Aunt Clara whispers.

“What rot.” Quinn sighs. His suit bags at the seams, but a faint glow of health in his cheeks offsets his auburn hair, and he has traded his bandages for an eye patch, which I privately think makes him look rather rakish.

“And you, Miss Lovell?” The photographer folds his black-tipped fingers over his chest and rolls back on his heels. Judging by my imploring letter, Geist must think I’m the most susceptible of us all.

I incline my head politely and say nothing.

The maid reappears in the parlor door. She is a plain thing. Buck-toothed and as jumpy as India rubber. “Dinner’s in the sitting room.”

“Thank you, Viviette,” says Geist. “And now, if you’ll excuse me to my darkroom.” He takes swift leave through the parlor.

“Absurd,” Aunt Clara mutters. “Viviette.” She mistrusts servants who sport exotic names. She thinks it makes them sound wanton.

Eyes averted, the maid leads us to a sitting room cluttered with bric-a-brac. My father once said that the character of a household can be known through the behavior of its staff. I don’t know what to conclude from Viviette’s refusal to meet my gaze.

The sandwiches and cakes are stale, the tea too strong, and the tables and walls are blanketed in photographs of vistas and monuments—my eyes are caught by a daguerreotype of Big Ben, the largest clock in London, which I yearn to see. There are also several portraits of Geist himself and stacks of cartes de visite of Geist and of his maid, modeling evening dress, street clothes, and even swathed in Grecian garb. Stealthily, I slip a few into my pocket.

“He watches us, even in his absence.” Quinn rolls his eyes, and we trade a humorous glance.

Silence holds the room until the spiritualist returns. There’s a bounce in his step. “Promising, promising! Now we wait until the varnish has dried and the photograph is printed. Then we shall see the fruits of our labors.”

With no mind to his blackened hands, Geist helps himself to sandwiches and tea before launching into a fascinating recount of his youth in Paris.

“I studied under the esteemed photographer Monsieur Disderi. Odd fellow but brilliant. Disderi made his money in his portraits of the upper classes, such as the present emperor, Napoleon, who considers him to have procured his very best likenesses. But Disderi will also go to great lengths to authenticate rumors of spirit activity. Why, that gentleman once stood sentinel for twenty-four hours at the Place de la Republique in order to photograph Marie Antoinette’s ghost on the scaffold, in her mobcap and with her hands bound.”

“How did he…when did he…?” A crumb trembles on Aunt’s lip.

“There’d been sightings every October sixteenth, the anniversary of her death. Doubters dismissed these as hearsay. Disderi proved them wrong. One glimpse of this image of the last queen of France would turn your hair stone gray. But that is nothing on Disderi’s journey to Scotland and his singular images of pagan spirits who have haunted Tulloch Castle since the twelfth century.”

Geist’s anecdotes are so captivating that eventually even Quinn leans forward in his chair.

“I want to travel the Continent,” he confesses.

“Go first to the City of Light,” says Geist. “Fill your mind with beauty.” He jumps up to leave the room and returns with a stack of tintypes. “Locke ought to have stayed there. He’s destroyed his sanity. But his images will bear witness to this war long after we are departed.” Geist hands them around for us to examine.

I examine portrait images of young boys with guns high as their chests. Rows of the dying. Rows of hospital beds. A look at Quinn, and I can tell that each image has hit him as a punch.

The pictures have a dizzying effect on me, too. I’m not sure if I’m mesmerized or daydreaming, but the heat is with me all at once as my memory catapults me back to last year, a languid August afternoon. Will and I had strayed from our picnic spot to go boating, and a boy, watching us push off from the bank, had decided to rifle through the belongings we had left behind, including Will’s sketchbook. Ripping out the pages…yes, I remember…the little troublemaker had then set them afloat in the water, and Will had blazed with fury. I’d never seen him in such a temper, and it had taken him the rest of the day to calm himself.

My eyes are staring into Will’s eyes—black irises ringed in pale blue.

I open my eyes and Will stands before me in blazing life in his Union uniform. The bottoms of his trousers are wet, and water darkly pools the carpet. His anger is palpable. He is so real, so alive, that I can inhale the tang of the salt water that he has carried in with him. If I reached forward, I could ball my fingers in the rough broadcloth of his jacket, my mouth could find that secret space where the carved notch of his collarbone met his throat and—

“Miss Lovell!”

Everyone is looking at me.

I blink. Will is gone. I am slumped in my chair, my teacup has fallen, and its liquid has soaked the carpet.

Quinn has left his chair and is bent on one knee before me. “Jennie?” he whispers softly. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” I sit up. “I’m sorry.”

“Miss Lovell, are you unwell?” asks Geist.

“No, no, I’m sorry—excuse me, I need air.” Quinn helps me to stand, but his hand, gripping bony at my elbow, is no comfort. I shrug him off, but then I am embarrassed, my palms lifted in protest for anyone to follow. I am careful not to look at Aunt Clara as I hasten out.

Alone in the hall, I untie my collar and fan my cheeks with my fingers. Though my fever ebbs, I have little doubt.

Will was here. He was in this house, in that room, if only for a moment. But it was as true a moment as I have ever lived.

On the front hall table rests a small, paper-wrapped package, twine-tied, inscribed with the name Harding. The package is approximately the same size as the plates Geist had inserted and removed from his camera.

A good spy is never afraid to transgress.

I look over my shoulder. Nobody is in the hall.

My heart could take wing, it’s beating so fast as my fingers unpick the twine. The knot gives too slowly. Then I slide a series of identical photos from their wrapping.

Backed and framed in a cardboard slip, a man sits as grim as a tombstone on the same ornate love seat of Geist’s parlor. Above him hovers a delicate, nearly transparent image. Dressed in gauze, a crown of holly leaves twisted through her pale, streaming hair, the angel appears otherworldly and is more exquisite than my most vivid imaginings.

For a moment I am struck paralyzed. Here is a real angel, caught and captured in all her radiant glory, for anyone to see.

Incredible, but true.

I hold it up to the fanlight for a closer look. There is something familiar in the angel’s profile. I decide to take one of the copies, sliding it into my pocket with the rest of my day’s loot before the family comes to collect me. I compose myself, avoiding Quinn’s eye, my own gaze intent on Aunt Clara’s enormous, bustling skirts.

In the carriage, when I dare to look across at Quinn, he ignores me with a cool indifference that makes me miss his brother all the more. How is it that Will—even in spectral vision, if that’s what it was—can appear more vital and vibrant to me than anyone else in the family?

I don’t look up again for the rest of the ride home, lest anyone see my suffering, which the Pritchetts would only dismiss as a weakness.

IN MY ATTIC ROOM THE LIGHT IS WEAK. I move to the window and spread my secreted photograph on the sill. White winter sky exposes the image. And now I can see the slight protrusion of the angel’s front teeth. I retrieve the other photos from my pocket.

The drape of Viviette’s Grecian toga makes a lovely angel’s cloak. I find the downcast eyes, that droplet nose, the bird bones of the neck and wrists, as the angel’s identity reveals herself to me. She is Viviette.

WE HAVE PICKED UP our pen in order to applaud those of you who have stocked your bookshelves with our recent publication, Picture the Dead. Indeed, we write also to nurture a hope that the dear souls who have not yet opened the pages of our novel will now do so.  It is an indiscrete and troublesome affliction to care so much for our little book’s success, and yet we continue to be utterly absorbed by our tale of the Civil War, romance, and supernatural doings.

With illustrations, no less!

Toward that end, and even as we dance a joyful Schottishche (Go on, look it up. You know you want to.) for the favorable reviews and for the many libraries in which our book is kindly shelved, we also cast an eye to ever-more challenging endeavors. Not the least of which being our Thoroughly Modernized Website where young readers and scholars may find all manner of fufilling amusements and historical anecdotes.

Additionally, we have been made aware of a new-fangled technological magic known as the AUTHOR SKYPE VISIT, and we are eager to try our hand. You need only to extend an invitation, and we would be delighted to join you, in person or via Skype, at your library or school. Topics of conversation would include but not be limited to: 19th century life, photographing ghosts, Civil War prison camps, and hair art. A Skypped powerpoint presentation with antique images will be joyfully included.

Many thanks for your rapt attentions. And please do visit with us here at www.picturethedead.com, for articles, resources, and excerpts.

We can be reached at browngriffin [at] picturethedead [dot] com for further information and scheduling.

With sincerity, we remain,

Photographic Amusements

I CAN’T REMEMBER HOW I heard of this book. Probably it came up during my research into the history of photography, and it sounded so excellent that I had to track it down. It is really quite incredible. My copy is the 10th edition, “Revised and Enlarged” and published by the American Photographic Publishing Co. of Boston in 1931. The first edition was from 1896.

Table of Contents

It’s basically a how-to book for amateur photographers itching for a little photographic experimentation. Just look at that Table of Contents. Not only does this book have lessons in “Spirit Photography” and “Doubles” but also “Freak Pictures by Successive Exposures,” “Photographs on Apples and Eggs,” (that’s on apples and eggs, not of apples and eggs), and “Pictures with Eyes which Open and Close.” And don’t let me forget the always essential “A Man in a Bottle.” What did I do with myself before I owned this book?

Figures 6 and 7

So, let’s look at how one takes a spirit photo. The first method, say authors Frank R. Fraprie and Walter E. Woodbury, is to engineer a simple double exposure.

“Suppose we want to make a picture something like Fig. 6. We must first prepare our ‘ghost’ by dressing someone in the orthodox ghost style, by draping a figure in a white sheet…Then we pose the sitter and the ghost in appropriate attitudes and give part of the required exposure. Then, leaving everything else just as it is, we remove the ghost and complete the exposure. On developing the film, we find the sitter and the background properly exposed and only a rather faint image of the ghost, with objects behind it showing through on account of the double exposure.”

Another way to make ghost pictures, Fraprie and Woodbury tell me, is to take an underexposed picture of a spirit against a black background and then use the same film or plate another time for another photo. In this way, the sitter is not aware of the ghost picture while they are posing. I have also read that people dressed up as ghosts would sneak into the back of a picture without the sitter noticing. Kinda like when someone does “bunny ears” to some unaware person in a snapshot. But it seems unlikely that someone wouldn’t notice a person in a big ole sheet.

“Of course it is not necessary to dress up the ghost in a white sheet and we believe that far more convincing effects can be obtained by having the ghost dressed in the ordinary way.”

See figures 8 and 9, below, as lovely examples of dressing in the “ordinary way.”

Figures 8 and 9

But wait! Our heroine’s late fiancé, William Pritchett, is up there with the best of them, including Lucius from Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side and the apparently supremely date-able Roger from Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour. Go Will.

Click on the chart for a closer view.

A house jacket: from Adele’s Godey’s Lady’s Book, Vol. LXIX – 1864.

THERE WAS A CERTAIN joy here in March, when Lisa (visiting the East coast to work on all things Picture the Dead related) and I tore open the mail to find a bound bi-annual index of Godey’s Lady’s Book, July-December 1864. The book, an Ebay purchase, was even inscribed, “Anna Lloyd, from T.P.M. 1864,” giving it that extra measure of authenticity.

But the droll amusements of that next hour—reading about how to crochet a winter jacket or whip up a batch of ginger lozenges—are presumably incomparable to Anna Lloyd’s unabashed delight when this very index was delivered to her, hot off the press and costing $12.00 for the deep-pocketed T.P.M., who was well aware of Godey’s worth in the lives of women of a certain social standing.

Godey’s was published from 1830-1898, but its heyday belonged to the forty-year reign (1837-1877) of its editor, Sara Josepha Hale. Under her longtime stewardship, Godey’s usual format was as a monthly magazine that, among its sewing patterns, song sheets, and cooking “receipts” also sought to print substantive, thoughtful and relevant articles on every aspect of a woman’s life. Conservative to its core, however, Godey’s kept away from such hot-button topics such as the women’s rights movement, even though the forward-thinking Hale was simultaneously publishing many stories, poems, and essays by women writers. The magazine also refused to become part of any political or war-related discussion—a search through this particular index does not turn up so much as a pattern for a mourning dress, and surely, in 1864, these were in great demand.

But if it was a leaf penwiper you wanted, well, you could stop your search right here.

From Adele’s Godey’s Lady’s Book,Vol. LXIX – 1864.

Materials: three pieces of black cloth; one piece of green; one piece of black silk, all but the size of our illustration; two yards of Alliance silk braid, scarlet and black; half a bunch of small gold beads; a handle.

This pen wiper represents a large leaf, veined with gold braid, edged with a fringe of gold beads, and finished off with a handle. If this is difficult to obtain in gilt or bronze complete, a handle may be made of wire, covered with gold beads twisted round, with the rosette of the beads for a button. The green cloth, of course, makes the top of the pen wiper; this should be braided all round the shape of our illustration, and then cut out. For the veinings the braid must be drawn through the cloth and back again, and fastened down on the wrong side. Nine little stars of gold beads are arranged round the leaf at regular intervals. The green cloth is lined with a piece of card-board, shaped, and covered with a piece of black silk. The three pieces of black cloth, which should be cut a trifle smaller than the green piece, should now be secured to the top, and the whole fastened by means of the handle, which is arranged with a little spring, to hold the leaves firmly together.

A pattern for a netted glove; an illustration for “Fourth of July.” From Adele’s Godey’s Lady’s Book, Vol. LXIX – 1864.

the first Atlantic Monthly cover from November, 1857

In honor of the sweltering weekend that Adele and I spent in Washington DC for the American Library Association (ALA) annual conference, a post about a man of ice…

WHEN I WAS LOOKING for a poem that Quinn could cut out from the paper and romantically secret onto Jennie’s picture, I turned to the venerable old Atlantic Monthly. Because I get pretty obsessive about historical accuracy, I wanted a magazine or newspaper that was actually in print at the time of the book. The Atlantic Monthly began in Boston in November of 1857, founded by such luminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and published first stories by Mark Twain and Henry James. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote dispatches from the front during the Civil War. The magazine still exists today, now called The Atlantic.

I found the poem “The Snow-Man” in  the May 1864 issue. The issue in its entirety can be found here. And here’s the whole poem, below. I couldn’t find the author, anywhere. Looking for “The Snow-man” only pulled up the much better known poem by the same name by Wallace Stevens. Adele eventually wowed me with her stellar googling skills and found the poet in question: a one C.J. Sprague.

I really love this poem, in all its rhyme-y creepiness. Love that a snowman is described as “a strange, misshapen image,” with “mouth agape and staring eyes,” and “monstrous limbs.” The poet talks about trying to embrace the snowman: “And the chill of his touch through your soul will creep.” This ain’t Frosty. I thought that it was an appropriately morbid and warped thing for Quinn to produce as a love-offering.

THE SNOW-MAN.

The fields are white with the glittering snow,
Save down by the brook, where the alders grow,
And hang their branches, black and bare,
O’er the stream that wanders darkly there;
Or where the dry stalks of the summer past
Stand shivering now in the winter blast;
Or where the naked woodlands lie,
Bearded and brown against the sky:
But over the pasture, and meadow, and hill,
The snow is lying, all white and still.
But a loud and merry shout I hear,
Ringing and joyous, fresh and clear,
Where a troop of rosy boys at play
Awaken the echoes far away.
They have moulded the snow with hand and spade,
And a strange, misshapen image made:
A Caliban in fiendish guise,
With mouth agape and staring eyes,

And monstrous limbs, that might uphold
The weight that Atlas bore, of
Like shapes that our troubled dreams distress,
Ghost-like and grim in their ugliness;
A huge and hideous human form,
Born of the howling wind and storm:
And yet those boyish sculptors glow
With the pride of a Phidias or Angelo.
Come hither and listen to me, my son,
And a lesson of life I’ll read thereon.
You have made a man of the snow-bank there;
He stands up yet in the frosty air:
Go out from your home, so bright and warm,
And throw yourself on his frozen form;
Wind him around with your soft caress;
Tenderly up to his bosom press;
Ask him for sympathy, love, and cheer;
Plead for yourself with prayer and tear;
Tell him you hope and dream and grieve;
Beg him to comfort and relieve:
The form that you press will be icy cold;
A frozen heart to your breast you hold,
That turns into stone the tears you weep;
And the chill of his touch through your soul will creep.
So over the field of life are spread
Men who have hearts as cold and dead,–
Who nothing of sympathy know, nor love,–
To whom your prayers would as fruitless prove
As those that you now might go and say
To the grim snow-man that you made to-day.
But soon the soft and gentle spring
The balmy southern breeze will bring;
The snow, that shrouds the landscape o’er,
Will melt away, and be seen no more;
The gladsome brook shall rippling run,
‘Neath the alders greening in the sun;
The grass shall spring, and the birds shall come,
In the verdant woodlands to find a home;
And the softened heart of your man of snow
Shall bid the blue violets blossom below.
Oh, let us hope that time may bring
To earth some sweet and gentle spring,
When human hearts shall thaw, and when
The ice shall melt away from men;
And where the hearts now frozen stand,
Love then shall blossom o’er all the land!

Mavis, the maid.

Mrs. Sullivan, the Pritchett's cook.

Nathaniel Dearborn, a wounded soldier with a secret.

Heinrich Geist, spirit photographer.

Viviette, his housemaid and model.

Mr. Harding, to whom a spirit appears.

And a later post will address the Strange Case of baby Amelia Pritchett, 1855-1857. Hang on to your hats, folks.

Our heroine, Jennie Lovell.

Jennie's twin brother, Tobias.

Jennie's fiancé, William Pritchett.

Will's brother, Quincy Pritchett.

Uncle Henry Pritchett.

And here a little side note regarding dear Aunt Clara. I honestly had trouble finding a model who was detestable enough to represent Clara in all her vile-ness. I was particularly keen to portray Adele’s incredible description of a “chin that wobbled like aspic.” Nobody during the Civil War era seemed to have such a chin. I tried concocting a composite from several existing portraits, but, in the end, I had to invent Clara out of whole cloth, sketching her out by hand. I gave her the requisite double chin, little girly ringlets, and an air of entitlement. Voila. Aunt Clara.

Here, at least, is an example of a model for her dress, expanded:

Aunt Clara Pritchett.

A later post will bring more models for more minor characters…

Mrs. Fish and the Misses Fox, lithograph by Currier & Ives. From the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

SPIRITUALISM, THE BELIEF that the dead dwell in another realm where they can communicate with the living, began as a small movement in the mid-19th century and attracted vast numbers of believers by the end of that century. The idea of “speaking to the dead” still has its place today in popular media, but most people don’t realize that spirit mediums and séances were invented by a pair of adolescent sisters with a clever prank.

On the night before April Fool’s Day in 1848, residents of Hydesville, a small town in upstate New York, were roused from bed by the persistent knocking of their neighbor, John Fox. Mr. Fox frantically bid his neighbors to accompany him back to his house and witness what was happening there: his daughters were communicating with a ghost.

The events of that night were documented in a pamphlet later published by novice journalist, E. E. Lewis. A strange rapping sound emanated from the Fox house—a sound that could not be explained by earthly means, no matter how thoroughly Mr. Fox and his neighbors searched for the cause. When questions were asked, first by the Fox daughters and later by neighbors, the raps appeared to provide answers, knocking once or twice for yes and no. By this spiritual telegraph, as it was later called, the entity identified itself as the spirit of a murdered man buried in the cellar of the house.

Attempts to dig up the cellar resulted in ambiguous evidence, but it was enough to convince the residents of Hydesville. Within a few weeks, word had spread that the two Fox girls—Maggie, age 14, and Kate, age 11—had the ability to call spirits back from the afterlife. The girls were mediums through which the dead could pass messages to their loved ones on earth.

Was it a hoax? Forty years later, Maggie Fox confessed that it was and revealed that she and her sister had, at first, created the rapping noises by snapping the joints in their toes and ankles. Later, they employed other tricks—encouraged and coerced by their older sister, Leah Fish, who realized the potential of their little game and whisked the girls away from Hydesville to set them up as spirit mediums in Rochester, New York.

In Rochester, Leah Fish made a profitable business conducting spirit circles at a dollar a head. Furthermore, she took steps to ensure her success by calling upon her acquaintance with radical Quaker and social reformer Amy Post, who introduced her to Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. An arrangement of mutual promotion quickly developed. The reform leaders endorsed the spiritualists, and the Fox sisters made certain that the spirits devoted some of their messages to political causes. What started as an evening’s entertainment became a thriving social movement which advocated the abolition of slavery and the rights of women. Soon, new spirit mediums began to crop up all over the country as the movement became more popular and evolved into a religion.

Meanwhile, Maggie and Kate Fox blossomed into America’s first teenage celebrities. Hobnobbing with the rich and famous brought the girls into the social circle of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, a Philadelphia war hero and explorer. Young Dr. Kane immediately saw through their pretense and, developing a romantic interest in Maggie, sought to remove her from the influence of her avaricious older sister. However, not even Maggie’s defection in the cause of love could halt the momentum of her creation. Political and religious forces had shaped spiritualism into a tool for social reform, a means of feminine expression, and a solace to those who found little comfort in more traditional forms of worship.

What began as an innocent prank would shape the history of America and eventually overshadow the two high-spirited girls who began it.

Here is E. E. Lewis’s original pamphlet about the Hydesville Haunting.

And here is Maggie Fox’s signed confession.

Check out Dianne’s blog, follow her on twitter and buy her wonderful book!

The medium Eva Carrière with a light manifestation between her hands and a materialization on her head. Photograph taken in 1912 by Albert von Schrenck-Notzing.

MEMBERS OF THE Spiritualist movement believed that people lived on in spirit form after they died. These ghostly presences could be contacted through “mediums:” people who were uniquely gifted with the ability to communicate with the spirit world.

Now, by “communicate” I don’t necessarily mean talking. Mediums had all sorts of communication methods at their disposal.

This communication would take place at an event called a “séance.” Here’s an invitation to a séance that our heroine, Jennie, has in her scrapbook; it is based on an actual séance invitation that I saw online from the 1870s.

A séance was usually arranged like this: a group of people would gather, often holding hands around a table, preferably in a dark, dark room, presumably to create a welcoming environment for spirits but more likely creating a welcoming environment in which the medium could manipulate his or her various means of speaking with the dead. Which included:

A séance in progress, ca. 1920.

Trances: where the medium fell into a faint or a trance and then spoke as if a spirit was talking through him or her, often in an altered voice. Sometimes there would be one spirit guide who spoke through the medium every time, interpreting what the other spirits in the area were saying. Other times each spirit in turn would get their chance to use the medium’s voice as their own.

Spirit writing: where the medium sat with a pencil or pen, fell into a trance, and began to write as if the dead person were guiding his or her hand. Another spirit writing method involved two slates tied together (that’s old-fashioned little chalkboards used for school lessons way back when). Upon untying them: behold! writing on the boards by unseen hands!

Spirit trumpets: this was exactly what it sounds like. A trumpet hung in the air, and out of it came the eerie whisperings of the dead.

Spirit cabinets: I love this one. The medium got into a special cabinet (I imagine it like a wardrobe or the space that a magician’s assistant gets into only to disappear) and was tied to a chair so that they couldn’t move around. The door was closed, and noises would emanate… rattles, raps, bells….sometimes ghostly hands would be seen floating around the structure.

Rapping: this is ye olde favorite. Where a medium would ask the spirits questions, and then merely ask for a series of knocks as responses to yes or no questions. One rap for yes, for example, two for no. Easily done with cracking knuckles or knocking on something hidden in your skirts. It was often accompanied by table tilting: meaning that the table that the invitees were sitting around would start tipping under their hands, as if moved by ghostly means.

Some of these were so clearly hoaxes it’s hard to believe that anyone could actually fall for it. But they did.