SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY

In 1863, a Dr. Child of Philadelphia reported that he found Mumler to be very willing to give him every opportunity to investigate his methods and that he was himself interested in finding a rational solution to the mystery. Mumler permitted Child to watch all of his operations in the darkroom and allowed him to examine all of his apparatus. Child showed the pictures made during the investigation and he and several friends watched the whole process, from the plate cleaning to the developing. He took the precaution to mark each plate with a diamond before it was used and yet on each was a spirit image. Child failed completely to discover any human agency that could have formed the spirit extras. And with each of these, they differed considerably from any that he had seen before and he had no way of imitating them.

The extras that appeared in Mumler's photographs did not meet with universal acclaim though and after more controversy, the Mayor of New York pressured prosecutors into swearing out a warrant for his arrest on charges of "swindling credulous persons by what he called spirit photographs". His trial was widely publicized and he was later acquitted. A number of eminent New Yorker's spoke out on his behalf and in addition, a number of professional photographers also testified that they had studied samples of Mumler’s work and had found no evidence of trickery. One of these was Jeremiah Gurney, the famous Broadway photographer, and he testified that he had witnessed Mumler's process, scrutinized everything and could find nothing that appeared to be fraud or fakery. Mumler was exonerated and his case dismissed.

Many modern researchers believe that Mumler may have actually captured something genuine in some of his photos, however, the lure of money was just too big a temptation for him and he supplemented his authentic photos with fraudulent ones in order to pay the rent.