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| William H Mumler Unidentified woman with female spirit ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
At the Getty Museum in Los Angeles there is an album of 'spirit photographs' created in and around Boston during the Civil War era by an underrated artist of the imagination named William H Mumler (1832-1884). In the great American free-enterprise tradition, he marketed tangible comforts to vulnerable people bereaved by deaths within their families. Mumler's ambitious nature (fueled, no doubt, by money hunger) induced him to supply these mourners with a level of technological reassurance far superior to the offerings of any organized religion.
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| William H Mumler Bronson Murray with female spirit ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| William H Mumler Unidentified man with female spirit ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| William H Mumler Mrs Tinkham with child spirit ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| William H Mumler Mr Tinkham (in photograph on table) with spirit wife and baby ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| William H Mumler Mrs S A Floyd and male spirit wearing toga and head-feathers ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| William H Mumler Mr Chapin, oil merchant (in framed image on table) with spirit wife and baby ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| William H Mumler Unidentified woman with male spirit pointing upward ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| William H Mumler Image of an unidentified woman (on table) with five spirits behind ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| William H Mumler Mr Brown (in framed image on side table) and his spirit sister ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| William H Mumler Mrs Swan with two spirits, male and female ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| William H Mumler Image of unidentified woman (on table) with child spirit ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| William H Mumler Ella Bonner with child spirit ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| William H Mumler Unidentified man with three spirits ca. 1862-75 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |