Bangs Sisters
| The Bangs Sisters | |
|---|---|
Lizzie and May Bangs, circa 1897
|
|
| Born |
May: October 1, 1862, Atchison, Kansas Lizzie: March 16, 1859, Atchison, Kansas |
| Died |
May: April 26, 1917 (aged 54), Chicago Lizzie: March 29, 1920 (aged 61), Chicago |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Spiritualist Mediums |
The Bangs Sisters, Mary "May" E. Bangs (1862-1917) and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Snow Bangs (1859-1920), were two fraudulent spiritualist mediums from Chicago, who made a career out of painting the dead or "Spirit Portraits".
Elizabeth was born in 1859 to Edward D. Bangs (1827-1899) and Meroe L. Stevens Bangs (1832-1917) while they were living in Atchison, Kansas, and Mary was born there in 1862. Edward was a tinsmith and stove repairman, originally from Massachusetts. Their mother was a medium herself, and soon got her four children (sons Edward and W.B.) into the act.
They moved to Chicago in 1868. By the early 1870s the Bangs family were performing seances as described in the August 3, 1872, Religio-Philosophical Journal article by Steven Sanborn Jones called "An Evening with the Bangs Children." People paid to be entertained at the Bangs home. Messages from the dead appeared on slabs of slate as chairs and furniture moved about the room. The children were tied up in a cabinet, then a guitar inside strummed and hands waved from within. For the finale, Mary brought forward a cat, said to be a "spirit kitten" from the afterworld.
In the summer of 1881, May and her mother were arrested for "doing business without a license", and while they claimed to be evangelists and such charges could not be brought against ministers, they were fined by the police court the following day.
On April 2, 1888, two plainclothes police arrested May and Lizzie during a seance and confiscated all of their props. They were released on bail the next day. While they were out on bail, Lizzie's seven-year-old daughter died.
At the same time, an April 17, 1888 Washington Post article reported that Lizzie and May Bangs had created the very lucrative firm, the "Bangs Sisters", which operated spiritualistic parlors in the Chicago area. That year, one of their wealthy clients, photographer Henry Jestram, reportedly paid vast amounts of his fortune for their seances. When Jestram died after being committed to an insane asylum, many blamed the Bangs Sisters.
By November 1890, May was on her second divorce, from wealthy chemical manufacturer Henry H. Graham. They had been married under the pretense that his dead wife had told him to do so.
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Wikipedia