William H. Mumler

William H. Mumler
Robert Bonner, with the spirit of his wife, Ella Bonner. William H. Mumler, 1872.
Born	1832
Died	1884 (aged 51–52)
Occupation	Photographer
Known for	Spirit photography
Home town	Boston

William H. Mumler (1832–1884) was an American spirit photographer who worked in New York and Boston. His first spirit photograph was a self-portrait which developed to apparently show his deceased cousin. Mumler then left his job as a jeweller, instead opting to work as a full-time photographer, taking advantage of the large number of people who had lost relatives in the American Civil War. Perhaps his two most famous works are the photograph of Mary Todd Lincoln with the ghost of her husband Abraham Lincoln, and his photo of Master Herrod, a medium, with three spirit guides.

After being accused of various activities, he was taken to court for fraud, with noted showman P. T. Barnum testifying against him. Though found not guilty, his career was over, and he died in poverty. Today, Mumler's photos are known to be fakes. Yet, they circulated widely in the following years and decades, and were marketed as objects of belief and visual curiosities both within and beyond the spiritualist movement.

Before beginning his career as a spirit photographer, Mumler worked as an jewellery engraver in Boston, practicing amateur photography in his spare time. In the early 1860s, he developed a self-portrait that appeared to feature the apparition of his cousin who had been dead for 12 years. This is widely credited as the first "spirit photograph"—a photograph of a living subject featuring the likeness of a deceased person (often a relative) imprinted by the spirit of the deceased. Mumler then became a full-time spirit photographer, and moved to New York City where his work was analyzed by numerous photography experts, none of whom could find any evidence that they were fraudulent. Spirit photography is thought to have been a lucrative business thanks to the families of those killed during the American Civil War seeking reassurance that their relatives lived on.

He was married to a famous "healing medium," who conducted her own business beside her husband's.