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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, everybody. As

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Speaker 1: you know, we are on tour as we record this intro.

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Speaker 1: We were actually on a quick break between two legs

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Speaker 1: of our autumn tour, and today we are sharing a

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Speaker 1: live show that we recorded recently in Chicago at Park West.

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Speaker 1: We had an amazing time in the Windy City and

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Speaker 1: the audience and the venue were both spectacular. So here

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Speaker 1: we go. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I am

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Speaker 1: Holly Fry and I'm Tray c V. Wilson. You guys

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Speaker 1: are so cute. Okay, So if you look at old photographs,

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Speaker 1: which we all have done at some point in time,

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Speaker 1: they all look a little ghostie and magical and ethereal.

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Speaker 1: But that is because they're old. The technology used to

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Speaker 1: create them wasn't as advanced as what we have now, obviously,

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Speaker 1: and they have aged, but almost since French inventor Nisifor

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Speaker 1: Niepp's uh started experimenting in the eighteen teens and eighteen

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Speaker 1: twenties that far back with bitumen of Judea to create

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Speaker 1: uh heliographs. Basically, they were like sun developed images. People

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Speaker 1: started thinking about the possibility of whether or not a

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Speaker 1: camera could capture the supernatural, that which could not be

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Speaker 1: seen with the naked eye, but which a lot of

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Speaker 1: people believed was there. And of course, today, if you

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Speaker 1: look online for like a quick google of ghost pictures,

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Speaker 1: you will see a cajillion of them. You'll even see

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Speaker 1: tutorials on how to make your own ghost pictures that

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Speaker 1: are very, very convincing. Um. But then there are a

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Speaker 1: lot that people think are real, and whether or not

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Speaker 1: that's the case is a whole matter of debate that

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Speaker 1: I don't need to wait into. Um. You believe what

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Speaker 1: you believe, that's cool. Um. But tonight we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about a man who similarly continues to be debated

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Speaker 1: as to whether or not he was legitimate or not

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Speaker 1: in this area. Uh, there are people who say that

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Speaker 1: his work was definitely the Ordeal and others who point

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Speaker 1: out a lot of the problems which we will talk about,

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Speaker 1: some of which are, in my opinion, hilarious. But first

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Speaker 1: I want to set the stage about some of the

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Speaker 1: ways that people have wanted, really genuinely wanted to actually

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Speaker 1: capture the unseen photographically. And so we're first going to

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Speaker 1: start with a brief story about the man who actually

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Speaker 1: inspired this episode, and I wanted to do an episode

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Speaker 1: all about him, but there just isn't really enough material.

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Speaker 1: But he is worth mentioning because he's fascinating. He thought

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Speaker 1: he was on to something super groundbreaking, which was the

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Speaker 1: photography of thoughts, and that man was Louis Darg. So

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Speaker 1: Luis Darg was born in eighteen forty seven. He was

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Speaker 1: a military man and rose up through the ranks of

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Speaker 1: the French military to become a commandant. What he is

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Speaker 1: most known for, as Holly just said, is trying to

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Speaker 1: take pictures of thoughts, and in nineteen eleven, Darg wrote quote,

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Speaker 1: when the human soul produces a thought, it sends vibrations

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Speaker 1: through the brain, The phosphorus it contains starts radiating and

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Speaker 1: the rays are projected out. By that point, he had

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Speaker 1: actually been working in this area of study for about

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Speaker 1: fifteen years, and his inspiration to start in this field

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Speaker 1: was the work that eventually led Vilhelm Rontkin to discover

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Speaker 1: X rays. In it was kind of like two similar

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Speaker 1: ideas that branched out. So X rays were happening, they

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Speaker 1: were in development, and he started to think, hey, if

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Speaker 1: we could photograph the inside of someone's body. Why couldn't

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Speaker 1: we maybe photographed pictures of what is inside the human mind?

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Speaker 1: It is such a cool idea, it is it requires

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Speaker 1: a creativity that sort of love. Yeah, and Darj wanted

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Speaker 1: so badly to capture these radiating phosphorus thought rays that

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Speaker 1: he developed a mechanism that he sincerely believed could do

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Speaker 1: exactly that as the thoughts exited the human head. And

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Speaker 1: this was a pretty simple apparatus. It was a strap

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Speaker 1: that went around the head and it had an atachment

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Speaker 1: for a photographic plate and the subject would wear this

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Speaker 1: portable radiographer and the images that appeared in the photograph

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Speaker 1: would be interpreted by Darge. So last night it occurred

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Speaker 1: to me as we were doing this, and I gave

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Speaker 1: that audience this idea, and I also give to you

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Speaker 1: if you want to go really esoteric with your Halloween costuments,

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Speaker 1: just strap a photographic plate to your head and be

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Speaker 1: a Louis Dalga experiments. No one will get it. You'll

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Speaker 1: be that jerk at the party that's explaining your esoteric

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Speaker 1: costume over and over. But it might be fun. When

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Speaker 1: you find that person who's like this is amazing, just

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Speaker 1: marry them. It'll be great, be perfect, um. But here's

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Speaker 1: the thing. Tracy mentioned that these these thought photos were

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Speaker 1: interpreted by Darg and the interpretation aspect of the whole

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Speaker 1: thing had its own poetry. Um. At one point he

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Speaker 1: asked his wife to hold a photographic plate in front

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Speaker 1: of her forehead to capture her thoughts. She was a

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Speaker 1: good sport, but she allegedly dozed off in this little

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Speaker 1: experiment um. And when Darja developed this plate, he was

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Speaker 1: absolutely convinced that the image that it had captured was

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Speaker 1: that of an eagle. And he actually notated this picture

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Speaker 1: photograph leg, which translates to photo of dream the eagle.

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Speaker 1: But Madame Darge was always very frank that she did

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Speaker 1: not recall dreaming of an eagle, or any bird for

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Speaker 1: that matter. Another Darge photo was produced um when the

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Speaker 1: subject referred to as Monsieur h wore the portable radiographer

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Speaker 1: while playing the piano, and Darj believed that the resulting

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Speaker 1: image was a portrait of Beethoven. And this interpretation requires

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Speaker 1: some creativity because the image is a series of blurs,

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Speaker 1: and then the diamond shaped area that Darj outlined as

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Speaker 1: Beethoven's image is like just a slightly sharper series of blurs.

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Speaker 1: It is the longest walk to get to that looking

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Speaker 1: like a picture. I'm like, bless your heart, Louis darja Um.

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Speaker 1: But to be clear, as cookie as this all sounds

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Speaker 1: to us, there were plenty of people who really thought

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Speaker 1: that the work that Darges was doing had a lot

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Speaker 1: of merit and should be explored further. And part of

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Speaker 1: the reason that they were so very convinced was the

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Speaker 1: way that Darjay talked about this work was in very

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Speaker 1: scientific terms. That quote that we read earlier, you know,

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Speaker 1: he referred to things radiating out and projecting and raise

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Speaker 1: in his mind. He was not talking about something supernatural

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Speaker 1: or anything hocus pocusy. He really thought that this work

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Speaker 1: was scientific, and he borrowed from the parlance surrounding the

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Speaker 1: work that was going on with X rays. So there

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Speaker 1: was a scientific explanation for the creation of these photos.

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Speaker 1: But it was not that he was rendering human thoughts.

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Speaker 1: He was rendering body heat uh uh. And then the

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Speaker 1: photo developing was also pretty amateur. So Darji's assertion was

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Speaker 1: that he was capturing in images, and that was debunked

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Speaker 1: using a corpse because initially, well initially it seemed like

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Speaker 1: this whole corpse experience experiment proved that Darge's work was

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Speaker 1: legitimate because when they put the portable radiographer on the corpse,

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Speaker 1: no image was produced because corpses don't think. Um, But

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Speaker 1: when they warmed up the corpse, low and behold, the

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Speaker 1: warm corpse produced some thought photos. I am so curious

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Speaker 1: how they warmed up the corpse. I have this really

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Speaker 1: really ridiculous cartoon in my head that involves a human

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Speaker 1: sized chafing dish. I mean they were French, right, that

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Speaker 1: seems right. Um, I don't know. I didn't I didn't

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Speaker 1: find anything that said how they heated those corpses up.

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Speaker 1: But those experiments that were conducted with the corpse were

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Speaker 1: done by the French Academy of Arts and Sciences, and

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Speaker 1: they took hold of this whole thing because Darja had

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Speaker 1: been writing to them to explain his work and what

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Speaker 1: he really thought was a scientific breakthrough. And some writings

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Speaker 1: about this whole event kind of frame this as like

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Speaker 1: revealing a fraud and that, you know. They pointed out

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Speaker 1: that Darge was a complete fakir. But really, Luis Darje

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Speaker 1: was a believer. He was not a con man. He

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Speaker 1: did not intend to deceive anybody. He was just really

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Speaker 1: really wrong about what was going on with his photos.

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Speaker 1: His work does live on though. That J. Paul Getty

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Speaker 1: Museum has nine darg photos in the collection, including his

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Speaker 1: wife's dream eagle. Uh. Some of these images have basic

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Speaker 1: drawings on them, sort of like you might like draw

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Speaker 1: what the constellation is supposed to look like to point

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Speaker 1: the viewer. So what Darge believed was the important part

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Speaker 1: of the photo. So one looks like an image of

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Speaker 1: a cane, and two are what he perceived as bottles,

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Speaker 1: one ground and one petite. And there is also a

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Speaker 1: photo in that group at the Getty that suggests that

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Speaker 1: in a way Darj was onto what was actually happening

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Speaker 1: with these image images, but he just didn't quite connect

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Speaker 1: the dots. There's one that's titled Inferior Plate Light and

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Speaker 1: not Heat, and it is a really blobby mess of blurs,

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Speaker 1: and his note kind of hints that he knew that

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Speaker 1: heat was involved, but he didn't realize that body heat

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Speaker 1: was the entire thing. It wasn't heat and thoughts that

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Speaker 1: was just the whole deal. Uh. Still, though, there were

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Speaker 1: and are people who work in this area and believe

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Speaker 1: that Darge was actually onto something he's sometimes referred to

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Speaker 1: as the father of thought photography and the experiments that

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Speaker 1: he was doing. Uh, there were experience experiments that were

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Speaker 1: inspired by the word that he was doing, and that

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Speaker 1: went on for decades. Yeah, even today there are people

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Speaker 1: still trying to figure out if we can capture what's

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Speaker 1: going on in the human brain and render an image.

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Speaker 1: It's a little less um about sort of the ethereal

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Speaker 1: and legitimately scientific and not just borrowing scientific words. But

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Speaker 1: the important thing here is that Darjay was by all accounts,

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Speaker 1: entirely earnest in his belief that he was capturing the invisible.

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Speaker 1: We kind of said as we started his story that

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Speaker 1: we were using this as a contrast because he had

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Speaker 1: no desire whatsoever to deceive. And that contrast is against

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Speaker 1: the next man that we were going to talk about,

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Speaker 1: William Mummler, who was doing his work which was in

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Speaker 1: spirit photography decades before Darjay actually, and whether Mummler was

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Speaker 1: earnest himself or was just fleecing people is a trickier

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Speaker 1: question that continues to be debated, in part because even

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Speaker 1: while evidence mounted against him and that he might be

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Speaker 1: doing something dicey he always, unfailingly, with absolutely no waiver,

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Speaker 1: professed his innocence. Yeah, so, William Howard Mummler was the

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Speaker 1: big name in spirit photography and a man who made

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Speaker 1: a lot of money doing it. He was born in

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty two, and then there's not a lot of

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Speaker 1: information readily available about his early life or his education.

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Speaker 1: But by the time he was in his mid twice

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Speaker 1: ns he had settled into this nice career as a

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Speaker 1: professional engraver at Bigelow, Brothers and Canard in Boston, Massachusetts. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This was an import and sales business that dealt in

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Speaker 1: quote watches, clocks, rich jewelry, silver, silver plated and fine

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Speaker 1: hardware goods Ivory table cutlery, Geneva musical boxes, watchmakers, tools,

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Speaker 1: files and materials per their advertising. It was a very

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Speaker 1: focused business. Um he had a lot of stuff to

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Speaker 1: engrave though. It kept in busy and he was really

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Speaker 1: well respected in this regard. And the start of Mummler's

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Speaker 1: spirit photography was accidental. Allegedly, he was interested in this

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Speaker 1: still new field of photography in the early eighteen sixties.

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Speaker 1: That was just a little more than twenty years after

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Speaker 1: Louis daguer introduced the Daguerra type camera, and in eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty one Mummler started learning how to make wet plate

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Speaker 1: photography at a studio that was the Mrs h. F.

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Speaker 1: Stewart Photographic Gallery, and in his obbyist work, when he

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Speaker 1: was alone in the studio one afternoon, he took what

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Speaker 1: he intended to be a self portrait and that picture

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Speaker 1: changed his life. Yeah, because when the photo was developed,

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Speaker 1: it looked like there was a girl in it with him,

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Speaker 1: and she looked very ethereal, as though she was made

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Speaker 1: of light. And there are two different versions of how

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Speaker 1: Mummler perceived this event. Depending on the source that you read,

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Speaker 1: you might read two totally different versions. So one is

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Speaker 1: that Mummlair claimed that he believed that this image was

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Speaker 1: that of his dead cousin who had been deceased for

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Speaker 1: I think it was twelve years but sometime, and he

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Speaker 1: marveled in this version at having caught a spirit with

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Speaker 1: his camera, and he started to show people this photo.

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Speaker 1: But the other version is that Mummler immediately thought that

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Speaker 1: because he was a novice photographer, he had somehow messed

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Speaker 1: up and he had used a plate that had already

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Speaker 1: been exposed, and then he was just showing it to

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Speaker 1: friends as an example of what a bumbler that he

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Speaker 1: was in the developing um space. So in this version,

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Speaker 1: it is a spiritualist friend of his who took that

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Speaker 1: photo public, claiming that it was a real picture of

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Speaker 1: a ghost. And that second version is the one that

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Speaker 1: Mummler related in his autobiography, And it is very convenient

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Speaker 1: because it very carefully makes him in no way responsible

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Speaker 1: for the claim that this was an image of a spirit. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but neither either way. Regardless of which of those versions

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Speaker 1: was the real one. The photo was soon written up

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Speaker 1: in two prominent spiritualist periodicals, New York's The Herald of

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Speaker 1: Progress and Boston's The Banner of Light. Mummler wrote later

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Speaker 1: on that he was mortified by the attention that this

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Speaker 1: whole thing was bringing to him, But then it just

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Speaker 1: kept happening when he took more pictures. Then he started

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Speaker 1: to think that it was not the error of an

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Speaker 1: amateur photographer but an actual spiritual phenomenon. Again, that is

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Speaker 1: the version he told of this story years and years later.

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Speaker 1: So for spiritualists, this picture was huge. This was cited

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Speaker 1: as an instance of absolute proof that spiritualism was scientifically

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Speaker 1: grounded and Mummler, it seemed, had validated the entire movement

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Speaker 1: with this one image, and as a consequence, to put

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Speaker 1: it quite plainly, he blew up. He was an overnight sensation.

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Speaker 1: So this was right in the middle of the Victorian era.

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Speaker 1: Spiritualism was all the rage. There was just a deep

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Speaker 1: fascination with the idea of maintaining some kind of tie

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Speaker 1: or communication with the dead. Abraham Lincoln was president at

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Speaker 1: the time, and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln was an

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Speaker 1: ardent spiritualist. Additionally, there was all kinds of technology developing

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Speaker 1: that showed that sometimes mechanical things like telegraphs could capture

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Speaker 1: information in a way that humans could not do on

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Speaker 1: their own. This was really exactly the right time culturally

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Speaker 1: for people to just buy into this whole idea of

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Speaker 1: ghosts appearing on film. And of course, I mean this

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Speaker 1: is not uh specific just to this era in time.

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Speaker 1: Anytime someone comes up with something cool, everybody else wants it, right,

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Speaker 1: That's how it works. And plenty of people were ready

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Speaker 1: and willing to give William Mumler money to take pictures

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Speaker 1: of their deceased loved ones. So in addition to the

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Speaker 1: interest in spiritualism. Part of the driver was that this

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Speaker 1: was also a time when a lot of people were

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Speaker 1: losing loved ones on the battlefields of the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Civil War. So those sudden losses made families really long

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Speaker 1: for any sort of connection to or memento of the dead.

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Speaker 1: So William Mmler stopped working as an engraver and transition

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Speaker 1: to working full time at the Stewart Studio making these portraits.

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Speaker 1: He charged as much as ten dollars for a portrait

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Speaker 1: at a time when getting a photo that did not

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Speaker 1: have spirits, and it costs twenty five cents. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: then yeah, he charged this sitting fee regardless of whether

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Speaker 1: a spirit decided to appear in the picture or not,

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Speaker 1: because sometimes they didn't want to. Uh. His business was

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Speaker 1: really booming. Yeah, I uh, I like the idea that

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Speaker 1: sometimes the spirits like that. I don't like that guy,

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Speaker 1: I've I've I don't feel my best today. I know,

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Speaker 1: I'm feeling a little puffy and I got two hours

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Speaker 1: of sleep. Um, so the client, excuse me. The client

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Speaker 1: would come in for a sitting and then they would

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Speaker 1: pose perfectly still for a minute to have their photo taken,

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Speaker 1: and then after that photo was developed, they would have

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Speaker 1: an image of not only themselves but also their dead

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Speaker 1: loved one, usually just behind them or just to the side.

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Speaker 1: Hopefully that's what they wanted. This whole thing was so

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Speaker 1: successful that William Mumbler also started a mail order business.

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Speaker 1: Clients could mail him seven dollars and fifty cents along

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Speaker 1: with a detailed description of their dead loved one, and

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Speaker 1: then Mummler would commune with the spirits photographically and then

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Speaker 1: mail the photo to them after processing. Those ones, of course,

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Speaker 1: only contain the spirits, not anyone else. I am also

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Speaker 1: very curious about, um like, what like if he if

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Speaker 1: somebody said, hey, when you're commuting with these spirits photographically,

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Speaker 1: what are you doing? Exactly what he would have had

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Speaker 1: as that answer. He would just say, like, I just

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Speaker 1: take the picture they show up or not. Yeah, he

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Speaker 1: put it all on the spirits. He was very not

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Speaker 1: about responsibility. It's really up to your nana if she

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Speaker 1: wants to come and be in a picture. Um So.

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Speaker 1: In the midst of his growing interest in photography. As

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Speaker 1: all of this was playing out, Mummler had also taken

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Speaker 1: an interest in the receptionist at Mrs Stewart's studio, whose

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Speaker 1: name was Hannah, and Hannah was a medium, and she

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Speaker 1: had been a medium since she was a child. She

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Speaker 1: was well known in the spiritualist community of Boston as

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Speaker 1: being very gifted in this regard, and William and Hannah

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Speaker 1: were married and Mrs Mummler soon became part of the

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Speaker 1: spirit portrait experience for their patrons. So our customers were

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Speaker 1: spending that full minute sitting in front of Mummler's camera.

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Speaker 1: Hannah would tell them all about the spirits that she

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Speaker 1: could see around them. Sometimes she would lay hands on

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Speaker 1: the camera, acting as sort of a conduit for the

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Speaker 1: spirits to make their way into the image. Mummler also

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Speaker 1: started to build himself as a medium along alongside her,

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Speaker 1: claiming that his work as a photographer had connected him

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Speaker 1: to the spirit world. I want to know so much

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Speaker 1: more about Hannah because she's always described sort of as

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Speaker 1: like almost a nineteen twenties starlet, kind of like strolling in,

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Speaker 1: maybe a little sleepy looking, and like I'm feeling it.

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Speaker 1: I'm really feeling it. Like she really had like the

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Speaker 1: whole jam down. She was good. So Mummler's business was

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Speaker 1: going fantastically at this point, but trouble was on the horizon.

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Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about that, but first we're

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Speaker 1: going to pause for a little sponsor break. So, photography,

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Speaker 1: as we mentioned, was an industry at this point that

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Speaker 1: was still in its infancy. So for a newcomer to

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Speaker 1: the scene who was very open that he was really

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Speaker 1: something of an amateur to be doing booming business in

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Speaker 1: a niche area using a mystery technique that no other

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Speaker 1: photographer was all to achieve, that attracted a lot of attention. Uh,

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Speaker 1: so much so that skeptics, some of whom were photographers themselves,

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Speaker 1: started hiring investigators to visit Mummler and see if they

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Speaker 1: could figure out exactly what it was he was doing. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So in eighteen sixty two, James Wallace Black took an

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Speaker 1: interest in Mumler's work. Black himself was also a photographer.

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Speaker 1: He had actually forged some new paths, although they had

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Speaker 1: nothing to do with spiritualism. He had traveled at a

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Speaker 1: hydrogen balloon in eighteen sixty which glad that went okay. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Doing this, he had taken the first aerial photographer, the

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Speaker 1: first aerial photographs in the United States. Those were of

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Speaker 1: the city that he and Mummler shared, which was still Boston. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it turned out that their studios were just a couple

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Speaker 1: of blocks away from each other, and Mummler came onto

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Speaker 1: Black's radar when a potential customer brought Black one of

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Speaker 1: Mummler's spirit photos and asked if Black could also photograph ghosts,

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Speaker 1: whether actually and authentically or through any sort of manipulative means.

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Speaker 1: And Black, who was a very accomplished photographer, I mean

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Speaker 1: he was well known before those aerial photos, could not

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Speaker 1: and he didn't have any theories about how exactly this

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Speaker 1: whole thing was being pulled off by Mummler. So he

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Speaker 1: was really curious about Mummler's work and really skeptical that

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Speaker 1: it was probably a scam. So he sent his assistant,

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Speaker 1: who was named Horace Weston, to pose as a customer

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Speaker 1: at Mummler studio and see what he could find out.

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Speaker 1: So not long after that, Weston went back to Black,

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Speaker 1: and he had a portrait of himself seated near a

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Speaker 1: window and the image of his dead father was next

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Speaker 1: to him. Horace Weston knew a lot about photography, and

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Speaker 1: he had not seen anything and Mummler's whole process that

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Speaker 1: looked like it was out of the ordinary. Um several

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Speaker 1: of Black's other employees laughed at him. Yeah, he had

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Speaker 1: gone back him in like this guy's legit, and they

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Speaker 1: were like, it's great, horace, are you drinking um So

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Speaker 1: at this point Weston, who had been laughed at, was

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Speaker 1: absolutely convinced of Mummler's authenticity, and so he went back

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Speaker 1: to Mumler's studio and he explained what had just gone

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Speaker 1: down that like nobody else believed him, he tried to

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Speaker 1: explain that it was real, and then he asked Mummler

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Speaker 1: if Mr Black himself could come and visit and examine

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Speaker 1: how these photos were taken. And Mummler happily agreed. He

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Speaker 1: had no hesitation in saying yes, send him over. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and he especially agreed when when Weston told him that

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Speaker 1: Black was going to pay him fifty dollars just for

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Speaker 1: the chance to prove him wrong. So Black went to

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Speaker 1: visit as planned. Mummler opened up their talk by saying,

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Speaker 1: Mr Black, I have heard your generous offer. All I

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Speaker 1: can say is be thorough and your investigations. And then

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Speaker 1: Mummler invited back to investigate anything involved in the entire process,

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Speaker 1: from the camera to the chemicals that were involved in

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Speaker 1: doing the processing. But here's the thing. Black was um

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Speaker 1: conceded to be Frank. He was so proud of his

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Speaker 1: own level of knowledge, and he had a lot of

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Speaker 1: corollary doubt that Mummler was anything but a bumbling amateur,

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Speaker 1: and so he made a decision in this whole process

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Speaker 1: that probably was the step that made him unable to

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Speaker 1: figure out exactly what Mummler was doing. At one point,

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Speaker 1: William Mummler said, You're welcome to take my camera apart

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Speaker 1: if you want, just you know, examine it, take it

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Speaker 1: all apart. That's fine. But Black didn't think that Mummler

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Speaker 1: was smart enough to manipulate the mechanics of photographic equipment,

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Speaker 1: and he even told him as much, and at one

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Speaker 1: point during the visit he said, you are not smart

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Speaker 1: enough to put anything on that negative without my detecting it. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I kind of love him because it's fun to read people.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time he shot himself in the

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Speaker 1: foot on it. Yeah, I'm I'm annoyed at him because

395
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Speaker 1: I'm like, not only were you real mean right there?

396
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Speaker 1: You had you maybe could have figured it out in

397
00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:52,320
Speaker 1: that moment. We would know now, but we don't. Anyway,

398
00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:56,320
Speaker 1: Black set sat for his portrait and followed Mummler around

399
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Speaker 1: the studio and into the dark room while the photo

400
00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:01,800
Speaker 1: was being processed, and he been offered to let Mummler

401
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:05,000
Speaker 1: even offered to let Black do the developing himself, which

402
00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:08,159
Speaker 1: Black once again declined, although he did watch while Mummler

403
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Speaker 1: did it. William Mummler mentioned to Black that the spirits

404
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Speaker 1: don't always appear like I said earlier. Sometimes they didn't

405
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:19,119
Speaker 1: want to. But as this image developed, a second figure

406
00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 1: did appear, and it was a spirit, and James Wallace

407
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 1: Black was convinced. He offered that promised fifty dollars to Mummler,

408
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Speaker 1: and this, you know self, self professed medium, wouldn't take it.

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Speaker 1: And that might have been his best pr move of

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Speaker 1: his entire career, because then Black went and told the

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00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:40,359
Speaker 1: whole story all over Boston. So to have Black and

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Speaker 1: other photographers as well endorsing his spirit work was of

413
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:47,320
Speaker 1: course a huge boon for Mummler. Business continued to grow,

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Speaker 1: and one thing that often comes up when this is

415
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:54,000
Speaker 1: discussed in the modern era is how if he was

416
00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 1: in fact leasing these people, he was able to produce

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00:23:56,880 --> 00:23:59,880
Speaker 1: these images that they were recognizing as their loved one.

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Speaker 1: And there are a few different factors that go into

419
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Speaker 1: explaining this. So one, people were really working from memory.

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Speaker 1: This was a time when there just weren't a lot

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Speaker 1: of photographs are floating around. So if somebody was remembering

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Speaker 1: what their aunt or their brother, or their their late

423
00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:17,439
Speaker 1: parent looked like, a lot of times they did not

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Speaker 1: have a picture of them. Um, they were trying to remember,

425
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 1: so if things like hair and height and build were

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00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: kind of close, then their brains would fill in the

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00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 1: details as recognizable because you know, they might not have

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Speaker 1: had another photo for comparison, They might not have seen

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Speaker 1: that person in quite some time. And secondly, I mean

430
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:38,880
Speaker 1: these images of spirits were kind of soft by design.

431
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 1: They were both a little blurry and translucent, translucent often

432
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:45,360
Speaker 1: so that same sort of fill in the blanks effect

433
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 1: would happen for people who just really really wanted to

434
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:50,879
Speaker 1: believe ensure they saw what they wanted to see. They

435
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:53,880
Speaker 1: had just paid dead get a spirit photograph taken, and

436
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 1: they were going to see that. Um. Third, these pictures

437
00:24:57,840 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: are generally pretty small. Like I think when we talk

438
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 1: about portraits, everybody imagines those like horrible portraits we all

439
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:06,160
Speaker 1: got in our senior year that are like eight by ten.

440
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:08,159
Speaker 1: These and not those. They were little mine looks like

441
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:09,880
Speaker 1: an ad for the wonder years, by the way, but

442
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:14,159
Speaker 1: it's not good. It's not cute. Um. But so a

443
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:16,200
Speaker 1: lot of these were on what are called UM card

444
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:18,800
Speaker 1: to Visit, which were essentially these little calling cards that

445
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:21,120
Speaker 1: were very very popular at the time. They were kind

446
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:23,679
Speaker 1: of trendy, so it was hard to make out the

447
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:26,359
Speaker 1: details even of the living person that had sat for

448
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:31,359
Speaker 1: the portrait, let alone the spirit that was next to them. Eventually, though,

449
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:34,440
Speaker 1: there was a problem. In eighteen sixty three, people started

450
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:37,440
Speaker 1: to recognize the images of the spirits and the photos

451
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: that Mumler was taking as people who were still alive

452
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:45,680
Speaker 1: and had sat for him before. Yeah, sometimes the ghosts

453
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:48,400
Speaker 1: of people who had died many years before. We're wearing

454
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:52,239
Speaker 1: the latest fashions. Um. One of the main people who

455
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 1: had this experience was Dr H. F. Gardner, And to

456
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: be clear, Gardner was a spiritualist and he had been

457
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 1: a believer and a big supporter of mum There's work.

458
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:03,880
Speaker 1: But after seeing a spirit and his second Mumbler photograph

459
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:07,320
Speaker 1: who he knew was a living person, Gardner was then

460
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:10,920
Speaker 1: intent on exposing this photographer as a fraud. So Gardner

461
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 1: wrote the periodical The Banner of Light to tell them

462
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:16,160
Speaker 1: about how Mummlers work in his second sitting with him

463
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 1: was a deception, although he also noted in that letter

464
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: that he still believed that some of Mummler's photos were

465
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:25,679
Speaker 1: in fact real pictures of spirits. Um This, combined with

466
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:28,800
Speaker 1: other people who similarly thought that the spirits and their

467
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 1: portraits were maybe people who were still alive, started to

468
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:34,879
Speaker 1: turn the tide against Mummler, who was plagued not only

469
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:38,359
Speaker 1: of accusing with accusations of using pictures of people that

470
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:41,560
Speaker 1: had appeared in his studio previously for for portraits of

471
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 1: their own, but that in between someone booking their sitting

472
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,480
Speaker 1: and actually coming for the sitting, he might have been

473
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: breaking into their houses to steal pictures of their dead relatives.

474
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: Accusations only, Yeah, that wasn't prue. I love the idea

475
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:03,840
Speaker 1: of him as like a cat burglar taking pictures so

476
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: he can fake them into other pictures. It's kind of great.

477
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:10,639
Speaker 1: So Mummler started watching his business dwindle down to the

478
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:12,879
Speaker 1: point that he had to go back to engraving as

479
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:15,679
Speaker 1: his source of income. But then a few years of

480
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 1: life in a city where people just thought he was

481
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 1: a total fraud. That was about as much as he

482
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 1: wanted of that. So he decided to do what anyone

483
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 1: else in this that that position might do, which was

484
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: to run away. Uh, he didn't go into hiding. Now

485
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 1: it was much harder to just track people everywhere they

486
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 1: went at this time, so it was easy enough for

487
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 1: him to just move to New York and start a

488
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:41,480
Speaker 1: spirit photography business there. This was in eighteen sixty eight,

489
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 1: and initially things in New York started out really okay.

490
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: Mummler worked at the William W. Silver Gallery. He did really,

491
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 1: really well in his first year. After less than five

492
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 1: months there, he had taken more than five hundred spirit

493
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 1: photographs and he had made enough money that he bought

494
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 1: Silver out. And just a few days after he purchased

495
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: the business from Silver, he was visited by a client

496
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: named Joseph h took her. Took her was no ordinary

497
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:08,600
Speaker 1: client though, he was the Chief Marshal of New York

498
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:11,439
Speaker 1: City and he was there to investigate Mummler at the

499
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 1: request of the mayor, who had heard a number of

500
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:18,160
Speaker 1: accusations against him. Took her sat for a photo after

501
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: paying Mummler for it, and then when it was developed

502
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 1: there was a faint figure in it, which Mummler said

503
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 1: was took her steadfather in law. So took her, took

504
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: that picture and left, and he also took some other

505
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 1: samples of Mummler's work and one of Mummler's advertising leaflets.

506
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:37,640
Speaker 1: All of this was being gathered as evidence to charge

507
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 1: Mummler because I was definitely not his father in law

508
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: in the photo, didn't look like him at all. Yeah,

509
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 1: took her. Just to Mummler, it seemed like another satisfied

510
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 1: client out the door. He liked me so much, he

511
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 1: took a leaflet. It's all going into evidence. Um. So

512
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 1: soon after that, Mummler was arrested for fraud and larceny

513
00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: and he was jailed in the Tombs, which was and

514
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: still is the nickname the Manhattan House of Detention. And

515
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:06,240
Speaker 1: on April twenty one, eighteen sixty nine, the preliminary hearing

516
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: for William Mummler began. So this hearing was really big news,

517
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 1: and sometimes you'll see it referred to as his trial,

518
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 1: but to be clear, it was not a trial. It

519
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 1: was a hearing to determine if the case should go

520
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: before the grand jury. It's understandable for it to be

521
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 1: confusing though, because this thing went on for weeks, and

522
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: it was all over the papers, and it featured some

523
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 1: big names, both from a legal standpoint and from a

524
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: celebrity standpoint. And that was in part because when Mummler

525
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: was revealed as a possible fraud, it fueled a growing

526
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 1: skepticism that had been really burning pretty brightly against Spiritualism.

527
00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 1: So the City of New York hired Elbridge T. Gary,

528
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 1: who was a very high profile lawyer. That name sounds familiar.

529
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:51,840
Speaker 1: This is not the Elbridge Gary who we talked about

530
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: in our gerrymandering episode. Uh, This in in fact, is

531
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 1: that man's grandson. Because history connects a bunch of different points,

532
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 1: um and in hiring Gary to head this prosecution team

533
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 1: against Mummler, the city was making a very very clear

534
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 1: message that this case was really all about trying the

535
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:16,040
Speaker 1: charlatanism that was so closely associated with Spiritualism. At this point,

536
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the testimony of two particular

537
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: witnesses from the hearing, But first we're going to pause

538
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: for another quick sponsor break. Abraham bog Artists, which is

539
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 1: a name that is so spectacular I don't want to

540
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: hear anyone ever criticize it. Uh was an expert de

541
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 1: garatypeist and photographer, and he testified at Mummler's hearing that

542
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 1: there were several ways in which Mummler might have created

543
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:48,959
Speaker 1: hoax photographs. And when Gary asked him how many processes

544
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: there are for making spirit photos, Bogardis answered, quote, I

545
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 1: cannot say. We may count them by scores. I can

546
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: take a man with an angel over his head, or

547
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: with a pair of horns on his head, just as

548
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 1: I wish. But Gardis even produced a fake spirit photo

549
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: of his own and showed that it was entirely possible

550
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 1: to produce an image of a ghost similar to what

551
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: Mummler was doing, and he explained one possibility for such

552
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: trickery to of a detection. He said, quote, I've made

553
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: exhibits by a process not already described produced. They are

554
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 1: made by taking a plate and coding it in the

555
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 1: usual way, having an impression taken by any camera out

556
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 1: of reach or side of the sitter, and then putting

557
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: the plate back into the coding bath. It might be left.

558
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 1: It might be left there as long as you like,

559
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 1: and when a sitter comes it can be used and

560
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 1: the first impression will appear with the figure of the sitter.

561
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: This is easily done. Yeah, So he's basically describing a

562
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 1: double process where you would pre set the plate with

563
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: an image on it and then put it in the bath,

564
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 1: and then when the sitter came, you would act like

565
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: it was a fresh, clean, unused plate and put it

566
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 1: in the camera and take the picture. In that way

567
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 1: you would get this this image. Um. The other huge

568
00:31:57,040 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 1: name that was involved in this hearing was none other

569
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 1: than P. T. Barnum, who had not met Mummler in

570
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: person before any of this, although he didn't know of

571
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: him and they had correspondence and he was there to

572
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: be an expert on deceit. In his opening answer to

573
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 1: the court to state who he was and why he

574
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: was there, he gave his name in his address and

575
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: then he said, quote, I have devoted a portion of

576
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 1: my life to the detection of humbugs. This whole idea

577
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 1: cracks me up. Uh. Barnum had heard about Mummler years

578
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: earlier and had written some Mumbler that he intended quote

579
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: to expose the humbug of spirit photographs. Barnum also purchased

580
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:43,840
Speaker 1: some of Mummler's work to hang in his museum, and

581
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: he wrote about Mummler's work in his book Humbugs of

582
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 1: the World. Although that's a great book title, he never

583
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: used his Mummler's name, instead just referring to him as

584
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 1: something like the photographer the whole way through, and he

585
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 1: concludes the the the chapter of the Spirit photos by

586
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:06,760
Speaker 1: calling calling them quote delusions daily practiced upon the ignorant

587
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 1: and superstitious. Yeah, he had been pretty vocally against Mummler

588
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 1: for a long time, saying that like, you're taking advantage

589
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 1: of people who are grieving, and that sucks. Um. Barnum

590
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: was certainly plenty problematic in his own right, so we

591
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 1: don't want to paint him as any sort of saint,

592
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 1: but he was essentially there to say that he knew

593
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 1: a deception when he saw one, and that Mummler's work

594
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 1: was exactly that. And when Mummler's lawyers questioned Barnum, they

595
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 1: brought up his expertise on such matters, citing many of

596
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 1: the entertainer's own deceptions that he had made money off of.

597
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 1: Uh He denied this characterization of himself as deceitful, though

598
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 1: he claimed that when he was representing the Fiji Mermaid

599
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 1: as a real thing, for example, that he had believed

600
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 1: it to be real himself and he only found out

601
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 1: later it was fake. Um. At one point he was asked, quote,

602
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:57,959
Speaker 1: have you never presented to the public matters you know

603
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: to be untrue and taken money for the exhibition of

604
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 1: spurious curiosities? In response, he said, quote, I think I

605
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:13,359
Speaker 1: may have given a little drapery with it sometimes. Of

606
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 1: course that response elicited some laughter in the core room,

607
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: but they were basically making a case that his testimony

608
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 1: wasn't trustworthy because he was a known deceiver. Yeah, it

609
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 1: was kind of interesting that both both sides were kind

610
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 1: of making the same case, but as evidence for themselves.

611
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 1: It's like, you can't testify you're a deceitful And they

612
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: were like, you're an expert because you're deceitful, um, which

613
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 1: I sort of love. Uh. That photo that we mentioned

614
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:41,360
Speaker 1: earlier that was taken by Abraham bog artists and introduced

615
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:44,720
Speaker 1: of evidence as evidence, was actually a picture of P. T. Barnum,

616
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 1: and floating to the right of Barnum's head is a

617
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:50,840
Speaker 1: ghostly version of Abraham Lincoln. Uh. You can see this

618
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 1: picture online. It's pretty cute. The photo showed how easy

619
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:57,280
Speaker 1: it really was to make a pretty convincing spirit photo

620
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 1: with no ghost whatsoever involved. Mummler had a significant thing

621
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: on his side, and all this the prosecution just couldn't

622
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: figure out how specifically he had created the hoax images.

623
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,960
Speaker 1: So Bogardis had offered up some possibilities, but they couldn't

624
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:15,840
Speaker 1: prove with any certainty that any one of these specific

625
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 1: things were what Mummler was doing. And then for Mummler's

626
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:21,399
Speaker 1: party stuck to his story that they were in fact

627
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:24,480
Speaker 1: spirit photos. He was making them by taking pictures of ghosts,

628
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 1: and he said that he just took the pictures was

629
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:29,640
Speaker 1: up to the spirits whether they wanted to be in

630
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:33,719
Speaker 1: them or not. And so on May third, sixty nine,

631
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 1: Justice Dowling, who presided over this hearing, made the following

632
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 1: statement quote. After a careful and thorough analysis of this interesting,

633
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 1: and I may say extraordinary case, I have come to

634
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 1: the conclusion that the prisoner should be discharged. I will

635
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 1: state that, however, I am morally convinced that there may

636
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: be fraud and deception practiced by this prisoner. Yet I,

637
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 1: sitting as a magistrate, to determine from the evidence given

638
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: by the witnesses according to law, and compelled to decide

639
00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:04,720
Speaker 1: that I would not be justified in sending this complaint

640
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: to the grand jury, as in my opinion, the prosecution

641
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 1: has failed to make out the case. I therefore dismissed

642
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 1: the complaint and ordered the discharge of the prisoner. And

643
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 1: that was that. And since this was all tied up

644
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: in the overall questions of the spiritualism movement, you might

645
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 1: think that that would have helped them out because the

646
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 1: charges had been dismissed. Uh. Oddly enough. Uh. The opposition

647
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 1: to spiritualism also thought that the wide publicity of the

648
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 1: case and the fact the judge said that he was

649
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:38,319
Speaker 1: personally convinced of Mummler's deceptions. Uh, they thought that was

650
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 1: a success. So the people who were for spiritualism thought

651
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 1: they won because the charges were thrown out. The people

652
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 1: who were against spiritualism thought they won because the judge

653
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:52,760
Speaker 1: was like, I know you're guilty, we just can't breast charges.

654
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:58,480
Speaker 1: Nobody wins. Everybody thinks they do. Ye. Uh. And there

655
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:02,120
Speaker 1: was another pretty significant low to Mummler's reputation. Two weeks

656
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 1: after this case was concluded, the American Institute's Photography Section

657
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 1: issued a statement denouncing Mummler, making it clear that he

658
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 1: was not welcome in the New York photography community. So

659
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 1: after this hearing and then what amounted to public shaming

660
00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: by his entire profession, Mummler moved again, this time back

661
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 1: to Boston. For a while, he kept taking spirit photographs

662
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 1: in a studio that he set up in his wife,

663
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:30,480
Speaker 1: Hannah's mother's house, and the demand for his work was

664
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 1: a lot lower, but he did make his most high

665
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:37,200
Speaker 1: profile portrait in that studio that he set up. Booking

666
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:40,880
Speaker 1: was made for a Mrs Lyndall around eighteen seventy. But

667
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:43,600
Speaker 1: really this was an appointment for Mary Todd Lincoln, and

668
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 1: as we mentioned earlier, she was a spiritualist. She wanted

669
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 1: a photo of herself and her late husband, and that

670
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:52,760
Speaker 1: is exactly what William Mummler gave to her. In this photo,

671
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 1: Mrs Lincoln is facing directly toward the camera and then standing.

672
00:37:57,480 --> 00:37:59,759
Speaker 1: She's wearing all black or what looks like all black

673
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 1: and a black bonnet, and then the spirit of Abraham

674
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:06,439
Speaker 1: Lincoln is behind her just to the right and looks

675
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:09,239
Speaker 1: to be looking down at her lovely, lovingly, with his

676
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 1: hands resting on her shoulders. You can see this on

677
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: the internet. It's actually pretty cool it is. It's a

678
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:18,920
Speaker 1: very sweet picture. And this photo was reproduced many times.

679
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 1: It became a really popular souvenir, but it did not

680
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 1: reinvigorate William Mummler's photography career. The last years of Mummler's

681
00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:30,320
Speaker 1: life actually diverge completely from his life as a photographic medium.

682
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 1: He wrote an autobiography in eighteen seventy five in which

683
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 1: he told his side of the whole story of his

684
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:38,799
Speaker 1: work in that area. That uh is is the one

685
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: that we have referenced before, and once again he admitted

686
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: he never admitted to any kind of deceit or fraud um.

687
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 1: William and Hannah, though divorced four years after that book

688
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: was published, and after they split up, he never took

689
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 1: another picture. He died in eighteen eighty four, in his

690
00:38:53,560 --> 00:38:58,120
Speaker 1: early fifties, and his obituary in the Photographic Times is fascinating.

691
00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 1: It mentions that he was the nter and treasurer of

692
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:05,759
Speaker 1: the Photo Elector Type Company, an engraver of prominence, a

693
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 1: successful photograph publisher, and an inventor. His Mummler process was

694
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: what enabled papers to stop using woodcuts in their news

695
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 1: stories and instead to print actual photographs using photoelectric plates.

696
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 1: The obituary also mentioned that he was working with some

697
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:24,279
Speaker 1: new technology that would let photo that would let photographers

698
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 1: use dry plates instead of having to wet coat the

699
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 1: plates before use. It's only at the very end of

700
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: this obituary that it says quote the deceased at one

701
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:38,439
Speaker 1: time gained considerable notoriety in connection with spirit photographs. Yeah,

702
00:39:38,560 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 1: his last several years of his life apparently eclipsed all

703
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:45,799
Speaker 1: of that crazy, heady time he was really quite famous for.

704
00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:48,640
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was just a really kind

705
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: oh bit writer or if at that point people were like, good,

706
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:54,360
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about the spirit photography anymore.

707
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: Mummler is still to this day considered the first spirit photographer,

708
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 1: but he definitely was not the last. Particularly as photography

709
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 1: became less and less of a specialized hobby or profession

710
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 1: and was progressively more accessible to a wider range of enthusiasts,

711
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 1: the number of people claiming to photograph the paranormal and

712
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:17,440
Speaker 1: supernatural grew. In some cases, as was claimed with Mumbler's

713
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:21,440
Speaker 1: first photo, these images were accidental. There was an effort

714
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 1: to take a photo of the Cumbermere Abbey in Cheshire, England. UH,

715
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: and this puts Civil Corbett on the map as a

716
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 1: spirit photographer. Corbett had set up a camera to take

717
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 1: this photo with an hour long exposure, and then when

718
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 1: the picture was developed, there was what looked to be

719
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 1: a slightly blurred and transparent but still very present figure

720
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 1: of a man sitting in one of the foreground chairs.

721
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:46,880
Speaker 1: And in the case of the Cumbermere image, many believe

722
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:49,399
Speaker 1: to this day that it is the ghost of Lord

723
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 1: Combermere himself, Civil Corbett's brother in law, who was recently deceased.

724
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:56,840
Speaker 1: Apparently he was actually being interred in the hour that

725
00:40:56,880 --> 00:41:00,719
Speaker 1: this photo was being taken. And while my skeptics will

726
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:03,439
Speaker 1: point out that the most obvious explanation is that during

727
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:06,520
Speaker 1: this very long exposure some servant came in, took a

728
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:08,239
Speaker 1: seat for a second to rest, then got up to

729
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:10,239
Speaker 1: go about their duties and that's what created this sort

730
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 1: of ghost image. UM. Other people like to point out

731
00:41:14,160 --> 00:41:16,840
Speaker 1: I believe in the photo that he was an important

732
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:19,080
Speaker 1: man and all of his servants would have been required

733
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:22,840
Speaker 1: to attend his funeral. Civil Corbett did not try to

734
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:25,320
Speaker 1: make a career out of this as a spirit photographer.

735
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 1: Any information on what her actual opinion was as total mystery,

736
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 1: we don't know um. World War One also had a

737
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 1: pretty significant impact on the interest in spirit photography, just

738
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:38,959
Speaker 1: as was the case with the U. S. Civil War,

739
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 1: The losses of loved ones by so many families kind

740
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:44,920
Speaker 1: of stoked the fires of hope that they could somehow

741
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 1: see their dead again, even if it was only an

742
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:50,319
Speaker 1: a static image. And into that moment that was so

743
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:54,640
Speaker 1: filled with grief, step photographer William Hope. And Hope, like Mummler,

744
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:57,719
Speaker 1: was offering the consolation of a photograph with a dead

745
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:01,120
Speaker 1: loved one for a price. In Nine Seen two Hopes

746
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:03,920
Speaker 1: work had gained enough attention that he was investigated by

747
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: paranormal researcher Harry Price, and Price was able to pretty

748
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:11,040
Speaker 1: quickly determine that Hope had been using two glass plates

749
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:14,640
Speaker 1: simultaneously to create his fakes, so one of the plates

750
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:17,520
Speaker 1: would already have a ghost image on it, and the

751
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 1: other was a clean plate that was used to capture

752
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:22,279
Speaker 1: the live subject that was sitting for the portrait, and

753
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:25,200
Speaker 1: he would kind of stack these in the camera simultaneously

754
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: so that when the image was captured, it looked for

755
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:30,439
Speaker 1: all the world like a ghost sitting or standing next

756
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 1: to the person who was still alive. Even though Hope

757
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:35,880
Speaker 1: was exposed, he just kept doing it. He had plenty

758
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:40,000
Speaker 1: of followers who dismissed Price's findings and kept patronizing him

759
00:42:40,040 --> 00:42:44,720
Speaker 1: both as a photographer and a medium. Sometimes evidence doesn't

760
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: make people believe the truth. Um, look, we're all on

761
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:51,760
Speaker 1: the same page here. We all know it's going on. Okay,

762
00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:59,759
Speaker 1: y'all know. Um. In ninety six, there was another mysteriously

763
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: haunted photo that was taken in Norfolk, England, And in

764
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,840
Speaker 1: this case there were two men involved, Captain Hubert Provand

765
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: and Indri Shira, who was Provin's assistant. Then these two

766
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 1: were working for country Life magazine and they were there

767
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,799
Speaker 1: on a assignment at Random Hall taking pictures of this

768
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,719
Speaker 1: beautiful estate. So they were getting ready to take a

769
00:43:17,719 --> 00:43:21,480
Speaker 1: photo of the building's main staircase and Indra Shira saw

770
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:25,919
Speaker 1: what he described as a vapory form that slowly took

771
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:28,720
Speaker 1: on the features of a woman floating down the stairs

772
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 1: and Sira exclaimed in shock. And then Provend, who was

773
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:36,319
Speaker 1: under the camera's cloth, jumped and snapped the photo and

774
00:43:36,320 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 1: then captured an image of a ghost in the process,

775
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 1: and the magazine published this photograph because why would you not. Uh,

776
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 1: And of course it was a sensation. Ranhom Hall kind

777
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: of already had its own ghost lore attached to it,

778
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 1: specifically that it was haunted by Lady Dorothy Townsend, and

779
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:56,400
Speaker 1: Lady Townsend was the sister of Robert Walpole and she

780
00:43:56,480 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 1: had died at Random Hall in sev Her legend involves

781
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:05,239
Speaker 1: a possible adulterous affair and being held there at the

782
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:07,800
Speaker 1: Hall while the outside world was told that she was

783
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:10,960
Speaker 1: dead as a punishment for that affair. Um. All of

784
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 1: the reality of this is super blurry, and the historical record,

785
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:15,480
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you, like the mythology that fed this

786
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:19,640
Speaker 1: picture's popularity. Um. So, yeah, we don't have evidence, but

787
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:22,840
Speaker 1: it sure makes a really good story that supports the

788
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:25,200
Speaker 1: idea that this is a ghost picture. And a lot

789
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 1: of the magazine's readers believed that clearly Provond and Shira

790
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:31,279
Speaker 1: had managed to get a picture of Lady Town's end.

791
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:34,360
Speaker 1: Once again, Harry Price was on the case. He opened

792
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 1: an investigation into the so called Brown Lady of Random Hall,

793
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 1: named so because she was allegedly wearing a brown brocade

794
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:45,040
Speaker 1: dress when her picture was taken, and then Unlike his

795
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: work uncovering hopes fraudulent photos, Price couldn't find evidence of

796
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:53,840
Speaker 1: specific trickery or foul play on provond and share his parts. Uh.

797
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:56,239
Speaker 1: He wrote of this investigation quote, I could not shake

798
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: their story, and I had no right to disbelieve them.

799
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:01,880
Speaker 1: Only collusion between the two men would account for the ghost.

800
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 1: If it is a fake, the negative is entirely innocent

801
00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:09,359
Speaker 1: of any faking. And Price's word carried some significant weight.

802
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 1: But there were still a lot of skeptics who did

803
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 1: not believe that the random Hall photo contained an actual ghost,

804
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 1: and in n seven, the year following the pictures publication

805
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 1: and it's huge surgeon popularity, the Society for Psychical Research

806
00:45:22,520 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 1: determined that the ghost that was captured was actually just

807
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:28,839
Speaker 1: the result of the camera being shaken during the sixth

808
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: second exposure at some point. So, no, they were not

809
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:34,399
Speaker 1: being deceitful, But they also did not take a picture

810
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 1: of a ghost. Maybe when he cried out an alarm, yes,

811
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 1: and he jumped. Wasn't imagine that would shake the camera?

812
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:46,239
Speaker 1: What I don't. But here's the thing that going back

813
00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:49,400
Speaker 1: to Mumbler, looking at this Mary Todd Lincoln portrait and

814
00:45:49,440 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 1: the other photos that becomes really apparent that even if

815
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:54,719
Speaker 1: you think he was a fraud, he was taking a lot,

816
00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:57,160
Speaker 1: he was taking a lot of care and how these

817
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: images were composed, and he probably did give a lot

818
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:03,759
Speaker 1: of people some comfort through his work. This stands in

819
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:07,400
Speaker 1: a lot of contrast to William Hope, who for example,

820
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 1: had photos that were like way less finessed. Sometimes they

821
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 1: looked like really sloppy collages, or like he had kind

822
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:18,200
Speaker 1: of scratched the negative to make a spiritual presence with

823
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:21,400
Speaker 1: no form there. Whether he was a fraud or legitimate,

824
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:23,759
Speaker 1: Mummler was a much better artist when it came to

825
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 1: the composition. I mean, like we said earlier, a lot

826
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: of these photos you can see online. They're really lovely.

827
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 1: The other in some cases, that Mary Todd Lincoln image

828
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:33,839
Speaker 1: is actually quite moving. It's really beautiful. But the thing

829
00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:37,240
Speaker 1: that remains unknown to this day is exactly how William

830
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 1: Mumbler was taking these spirit photos. He may have had

831
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:43,440
Speaker 1: a previously prepared glass plate sitting in front of an

832
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 1: unused plate in his camera. One of the ways that

833
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 1: we've talked about this being done so that when he

834
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 1: took that image of the client, it also captured the ghost.

835
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 1: But he also could have used any one of the

836
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:55,760
Speaker 1: methods that Abraham Bogardis had described during Mummler's legal hearing,

837
00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:59,359
Speaker 1: but nobody really knows. Yeah, it's all speculation, and it's

838
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:01,880
Speaker 1: part of why mom Where Can continues to fascinate a

839
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:04,279
Speaker 1: lot of people, and why is case does used as

840
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 1: evidence both by skeptics who think that the photos are

841
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:10,600
Speaker 1: obviously fake and by believers who point out that their

842
00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: creation is still a mystery. So that is William Mumler,

843
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:19,440
Speaker 1: spirit photographer and history mystery. We really cannot can not.

844
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:22,319
Speaker 1: I cannot stress this enough. Thank the staff at Park

845
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 1: West enough for their hospitality and their incredible level of organization.

846
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:28,360
Speaker 1: We felt so pampered while we were there in that

847
00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 1: building is really cool. Yeah, they were absolutely great. And

848
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 1: if you would like to come to one of our

849
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:35,960
Speaker 1: live shows, we have good news. If you are in Texas,

850
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:40,799
Speaker 1: we will be touring there starting November and you can

851
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:43,120
Speaker 1: get more information if you go to our website click

852
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 1: on where it says live shows the top of the page,

853
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: or just go to Misston History dot com slash shows

854
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:51,840
Speaker 1: And then I think Holly to close us out, have

855
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:54,799
Speaker 1: some listener mail I do. It's a this is the

856
00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:57,400
Speaker 1: longest episode, so it's a quick one, and this is

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Speaker 1: from our listener, Uh Catlin, I think that is. She

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00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:02,600
Speaker 1: goes by. She says to start, thank you guys for

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Speaker 1: all the things I get to learn by listening to

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00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:08,240
Speaker 1: your entertaining podcast. I'm emailing after the Robert Liston episode

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Speaker 1: because it just so happened to be released the same

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00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:12,480
Speaker 1: day that my little kitten went to the vet to

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00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:15,279
Speaker 1: amputate his nub. He was born without a paw on

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00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:17,560
Speaker 1: his right back leg, causing it to grow a bit weird,

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Speaker 1: and it usually stuck out from his side like a

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Speaker 1: chicken wing. She goes on to describe a little bit

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Speaker 1: more of it, but basically she had to they had

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Speaker 1: to have a little surgery for it. She said, your

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00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 1: episode was a nice thing to tell me that this

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00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 1: guy had it down way back when and taught others

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00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 1: to do well also, and that gave me a little

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00:48:33,160 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 1: extra confidence that the technique for the tiny kitty would

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00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:39,240
Speaker 1: be geared for helping him to She also attached pictures

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Speaker 1: of this incredibly weaponized level cute cash, for which we

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00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 1: thank her. I'm so glad he's doing well. And then

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00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 1: his surgery went well. I have said many times on

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Speaker 1: the podcast. My hat is always off to veterinarians for

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00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:53,600
Speaker 1: the work they do, because, uh, they are learning to

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00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:56,279
Speaker 1: deal with many species, not just one human species like

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00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 1: a human doctor. Just also no shade to human doctors,

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00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:00,719
Speaker 1: but it's a lot of and I think they don't

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00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:03,400
Speaker 1: always get enough credit. So I am so glad your

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00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 1: kitten is doing well and again always happy for a

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Speaker 1: chance to shout out the awesomeness of veterinarians. If you

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Speaker 1: would like to write to us, you can do so

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00:49:11,200 --> 00:49:13,680
Speaker 1: at History Podcast at how stove works dot com. Do

887
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:16,240
Speaker 1: you also find us everywhere on social media as missed

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00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:18,800
Speaker 1: in History and the web page that Tracy mentioned a

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00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:21,440
Speaker 1: bit ago is missed in History dot com, so come

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00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:23,759
Speaker 1: and check us out there check out live show information.

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00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:26,279
Speaker 1: You can also subscribe to the podcast as something we

892
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:28,360
Speaker 1: delight in and encourage. You can do that on the

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, at Apple podcast or wherever it

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00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:38,360
Speaker 1: is you listen. Stuff you missed in History Class is

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Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For

896
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:43,719
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart

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00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:46,799
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

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00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:47,520
Speaker 1: favorite shows.