Miller: There’s a ghost in the picture!!

On a Sunday afternoon in March of 1861, William Mumler, a jewelry engraver, and part-time photographer, decided to make a self-portrait. It was hard to take a “selfie” at that time. Cameras were large wooden boxes on tripods. They required long exposure times, and images were imprinted on glass slides that required development in a dark room.

Once Mumler developed the glass plate, he had a nice picture of himself and the little girl standing next to him for the photo.

Mumler was entirely surprised by the photo. Primarily because there had not been a little girl standing next to him. But there she was, and she was transparent. Her entire body could be seen, but items that her body would usually have blocked from view in the picture were still visible. She appeared to be a ghost.

Mumler attributed the odd photo to his lack of skill. He was still a novice photographer and thought he had made an error during the exposure or the developing process.

Mumler showed the photo to a few friends as an oddity, continuing to consider the image to have resulted from his fledgling skills.

At the same time, Mumler’s wife Hannah, a spiritual healer, was showing it to her fellow spiritualists. One of Mrs. Munmler’s acquaintances was sure the little girl in the picture was a ghost. This caused quite a stir, and “spirit photography” was born.

People began to flock to Mumler’s Boston studio to have their pictures taken. They hoped that loved ones who had passed away would appear in their photos. Remarkably, loved ones did appear at a relatively high frequency.

The Civil War highly influenced the number of people seeking the service, as people were losing loved ones rapidly. Loved ones continued to appear in photos. Business grew and later Mumler moved to New York to obtain a less saturated audience for his work.

Obviously, plenty of skeptics felt Mumler was perpetrating a hoax and taking advantage of grieving people. Mumler fought back. He invited one of his most prominent critics to witness his work. The man was allowed to inspect the camera and equipment, have his picture taken, and be in the darkroom for development. A ghost-like figure appeared in the picture with the gentleman.

Eventually, Mumler ended up in a New York court charged with defrauding the public. Official charges were finally brought when a few people recognized people in their photos who were still alive and not kin to them. Oops!

One of the witnesses against Mumler was noted showman P. T. Barnum. As I frequently say, “Oh, come on!” Here is a guy who combined a chimp’s head with the body of a large fish, called it a mermaid, and made thousands by charging the public to see it. And that was just one of his scams. Clearly a credible witness.

Dozens of people testified on Mumler’s behalf. Most people had found solace in the photos Mumler produced of them and their loved ones. The images had given them great comfort, and they swore (they were on the witness stand) the photos in the pictures were of their deceased loved ones.

Mumler was acquitted of all charges. But not because he was innocent. The judge made it clear that he thought Mumler was committing fraud, but the prosecution had failed to prove how he was committing fraud. The mechanism of how he produced the photos was not discovered, and a link between the mechanism and his intentions was not established.

Mumler returned to Boston after the trial and picked up where he left off. It was then that he recorded his most famous photograph.

Mary Todd Lincoln, the widow of Abraham Lincoln, sat for a portrait in his studio. She entered under an assumed name but was recognized by Mumler just before he took her picture.

Mrs. Lincoln was a known follower of spiritualism and had held seances while in the white house. She had been attempting to reach her dead son. Sitting for the photo was another attempt to contact with him and her deceased husband. When her picture was developed, the image of the past president stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. The photo can be found easily online.

Mumler died having never admitted to fraud, and his methods are still unknown. He was obviously inventive and not just with his spiritual photography. He originated several photography methods, one still in use today.

According to my research, no one ever figured out how he produced his famous Lincoln photograph.

Some information about his methods was discovered despite his persistence that there was no fraud. He had been using glass slides that contained previous images. He collected glass plates with various people of all shapes, sizes, and ages that could match the descriptions of the person(s) his subjects hoped to see.

His wife was known to pry descriptions of the departed from subjects before sessions. The descriptions were then matched with the glass plates with existing images. The ghostly images were usually faint and blurry but close enough to the departed’s’ features to leave the impression that the figure in the photo was the subject’s loved one.

One of the keys here is, the subjects wanting to see their loved ones. Desperation and grief played a part, helping them see what they wanted to see. Their minds accepted the fuzzy image as their loved ones.

Mumler’s work could be considered early Photoshopping.

Google William Mumler to view some of the many photos of his subjects and their ghostly companions.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Miller: There’s a ghost in the picture!!