Artifacts

Late 1890s blouse

 

Artifact: Cameo (undated from an estate sale)

Artifact: Copy of a Victorian Photo Dating to 1899

 

Artifact: Copy of a Spirit Photograph by William Hope (1863 – March 8, 1933)

This photograph is a part of a collection found in a Lancashire antiquarian bookshop by a curator from the National Media Museum. The photographer, William Hope, had an interest in the supernatural and founded a group called the Crewe Circle. This circle consisted of six members who were spirit photographers. While this photograph is post-Victorian era, falling into the time period of WWI; it is an excellent representation of the practice.

Spirit photography itself is considered a scam practice. Hope was exposed as a fraudster by Harry Price, a representative of the Society for Psychical Research. In order to create these “ghostly” images, Hope, and others like him, would use double exposures. This was done by using a glass panel with the ghostly figure on it, along with a photography of the living, in order to change the negatives and fake a paranormal exposure.

The popularity of such images, along with a driving force to claim that such were real and not the products of scammers, was due to the need of the living to find solace in the deaths of loved ones. The American Civil War during the Victorian Era caused a great deal of death and destruction. This use of spirit photography went into the 20th Century for the same reasons. The practice did not begin to decline until following World War I.

• This photo is in the public domain.