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refl ected into the lens during exposure. These represen-
tation were the result of spiritualism, a dubious spin-off
movement of Transcendentalism that was founded in
Rochester, New York, in 1848 by the medium Margaret
Fox and her sisters, who later admitted their activities
were fraudulent. Spiritualists believed that the human
personality survived death and could communicate
with the living through a medium that was sensitive to
the spirit’s vibrations. This gave rise to so-called spirit
photography, which purported to make visual records of
ectoplasmic manifestations of persons in a state beyond
death. William Mumler, who ran the best-known spirit
photograph studio in New York in the early 1860s, was
eventually arrested as a swindler, though the charges
were eventually dismissed because trickery was not
proved. Nevertheless, spirit photographs attracted a large
audience of predisposed believers who paid no atten-
tion when it was demonstrated that spirit photographs
were produced by double exposure or multiple printing.
Other photographers used these techniques and got into
this commercially viable escapade without making any
supernatural claims. To help sell his stereoscope, Sir
David Brewster suggested making “ghost” stereo cards
for fun; they quickly became a fad. Although Ameri-
cans did not get involved with allegorical combination
printing, spirit pictures encouraged experimentation
with multiple exposure and acceptance of this style of
depiction. Even though ghost cards were known to be
fabricated, the fact that they were done photographically
gave the appearance of truth. Spirit photography spread
to Europe during the mid 1870s and again in the 1890s.
These were times of recession for portrait studios, and
ghosts were good for business.
For the intellectually inclined, John Thomson was
the fi rst to incorporate the multiple print concept in
order to fashion two three-part panoramas in his limited
edition book The Antiquities of Cambodia; a series of
photographs taken on the spot, with letterpress descrip-
tion, 1867.
Robert Hirsch
See also: Talbot, William Henry Fox; Le Gray,
Gustave; Silvy, Camille; Wet Collodion Positive
Processes; Wet Collodion Negative; Bayard,
Hippolyte; Southworth, Albert Sands, and Josiah
Johnson Hawes; Barnard, George N.; Price, William
Lake; Rejlander, Oscar Gustav; Victoria, Queen and
Albert, Prince Consort; Robinson, Henry Peach;
Mumler, William H.; and Brewster, Sir David.Further Reading
Newhall, Beaumont, Photography: Essays & Images The Mu-
seum of Modern Art, New York,1980, 90.
Rejlander, O. G., “On Photographic Composition with a Descrip-
tion of Two Ways of Life,” The Photographic Journal IV, no.
65 (April 21, 1858): 191–196.
——, Humphrey’s Journal of Photography. 9, no. 6 ( July 15,
1857), 92–93.
“Fifth Annual Photographic Exhibition,” Art Journal (April 1,
1858): 120–21.
Figuier, Louis, La Photographie au Salon de 1859, Paris, 1860,
14.
Robinson, Henry Peach, The Elements of Pictorial Photography,
Percy Lund & Co., Ltd., Bradford, 1896, 102.MULTIPLE PRINING, COMINATION PRINTING, AND MULTIPLE EXPOSURE
Hobson, W.S. Amateurs
playing ghost scene.
The J. Paul Getty Museum,
Los Angeles © The J. Paul
Getty Museum,