Mary's Charlatans by Memoirs of Henry Villard

[HerbS]

Henry Villard noted that Mary started contributing to President Lincoln's troubles as soon as the family arrived in Washington.The situation worsened in the Spring of 1862 after Willie Lincoln died.She patronized "Spiritualists who were accomplished frauds".President Lincoln once asked a Union Army Officer:"Do you ever find yourself talking with the dead?"Since Willie's death,I catch myself every day communicating with him as if he were here with me."Does this mean that the Lincolns were "Spiritualists"? Or,Don't we all have those moments?

[BettyO]

Spiritualism was very, very popular from the middle half of the 19th Century on through the first half of the 20th Century. The Fox sisters in upstate New York started the craze when they began "playing games" with table tilting and asking spirits questions with a plachette and an inverted wine glass - early forerunner of the Ouji Board. The craze caught on; especially when a Mr. William Mumler, an early photographer, got into the act with his "Spirit Photography." Mary Lincoln fell for that as well, particularly after Mr. Lincoln died. Mumler knew how to manipulate photography and double exposures to produce "spirit images" on photographs which were considered quite a phenomenon until he was later exposed as a fraud.

I don't think that this meant that the Lincolns were "spiritualists" in the strict sense that they seriously practiced. They may have believed as did a great many Americans during this time period. I also think that all persons like to believe that yes, our souls do go on; and yes that in our private times that we can communicate. I know I'd LOVE to see my dad again! So yes, I would guess that Mr. Lincoln would, as a grieving parent, sometimes "speak" or find himself attempting to "communicate" with Willie, either consciously or unconsciously. But I don't think that would make him a spiritualist in the strict sense of the word.

[HerbS]

Betty,Thank you for the information.I think in a way we all have some"Spiritalist"in us! I know that my wife is "up there"taking care of me!

[LincolnMan]

I don't think Mr. Lincoln was. He may have been curious about it-especially at that time-but I don't think he believed in it. Mary, on the other hand?

[Gene C]

Does the book "This Republic of Suffering" touch on any of this?

[LincolnMan]

Yes it does-as it relates to efforts of that era to deal with death-partially due to the impact Darwinism was having on the concept of "afterlife."

[RJNorton]

There were possibly as many as eight seances held in the White House itself. Abraham accepted gifts and read books and letters from mediums, but he never became a believer. According to "Lincoln Day By Day" edited by Earl Schenck Miers, the president “allegedly attended a spiritualist seance in the White House” on April 23, 1863.

Mary was much more into it than Abraham. In October 1863 Mary said to her half sister, Emilie Todd Helm:

"Willie lives. He comes to me every night and stands at the foot of the bed with the same sweet adorable smile he always has had. He does not always come alone. Little Eddie is sometimes with him, and twice he has come with our brother, Alex**."

Mary purchased a book entitled "The Disowned" written by Sir Edward Bulwer and published in 1862. It’s signed "Mary Lincoln, 1864," and is a novel about spiritualism.

**Alex = Mary's half brother, Lieutenant Alexander H. Todd, 23, who had been killed while fighting for the Confederates at Baton Rouge.

[LincolnMan]

Interesting. I wonder if she may have actually been suffering from psychosis.

[Laurie Verge]

I can easily see where many people of that era would be inclined to follow Spiritualism. Death was an everyday occurence in one's normal pattern; but with the horrors of the Civil War, the yearning to believe that your loved one was fine in the afterlife and could communicate back with you could turn into a source of comfort under the belief in Spiritualism.

To me, it just became another form of faith in the teachings of the New Testament - that there was life after death. To me, the only difference is the issue of actual "communication" with the deceased.

If I can add a personal note here: We almost lost my daughter when she was four years old. She had a rare form of croup and stopped breathing, her eyes rolled back in her head, and her bowels let loose. Luckily, she was revived, but spent a week in the hospital while she was tested for brain damage (none - straight A student - graduated from college with honors - now working on her second Master's - pardon my bragging). If she had died, I suspect I could have converted to Spiritualism in order to "talk" with her also.

P.S. We actually have a staff member who has researched the Spiritualism movement of the 19th-century and gives PowerPoint presentations on it as part of our speakers' bureau. It is very popular. You would be amazed at how many famous people of the 19th-century were involved in the movement.

[RJNorton]

Thanks for sharing, Laurie. What pride you must have in your daughter!

I have several sources that indicate most of Mary Lincoln's friends abandoned her after her husband was no longer president; the one group that did not abandon her was her spiritualistic friends. After the assassination Mary was visited in the White House by several spiritualists. They attempted to console the grieving widow.

[RJNorton]

This is the photo Betty was talking about in her post above. In The Photographs of Mary Todd Lincoln Lloyd Ostendorf gave the photo below an "about 1872" date. He stated that the photographer was unknown. However, Jean Baker, in her biography of Mary, gives this account. Mary often went to séances under an assumed name. She liked to "test" the mediums' skills. Once, on a trip to Boston, she attended a séance using the name "Mrs. Tundall" to avoid recognition. Abraham "appeared" before her during the séance. She then visited William Mumler's studio. Mumler was a spirit photographer who made the photo.

[HerbS]

Roger,Upon reading more of Villard's memoirs that picture says a 1000 words!

[Craig Hipkins]

Interesting topic. Victor Hugo wrote a book called Conversations With Eternity, a copy which I own translated from the French. In the 19th century Hugo and other eccentric mostly well-to-do people engaged in a phenomena called table-talking. It was sort of like a Ouji board only the table was used instead by rapping sounds and movement. Supposedly Hugo has conversations with long dead philosophers and writers such as Macchiavelli and Galileo. This was something that Mary Lincoln probably would have engaged in.

Another good book on the spiritualism of the day is called The Spirit Book by Allan Kardec.

Craig

[LincolnMan]

That picture must have freaked Mary out!

[HerbS]

Craig,Thanks for the great information!!! Villard writes about Mary and Ouji board as a daily occurance,as a [common place use].