Mary Todd Lincoln and the Ghost of Abraham Lincoln: William H. Mumler's Spirit Photograph

William H. Mumler was a former jewelry engraver who claimed his camera could capture the dead. In April 1869 he stood trial in New York for fraud. P. T. Barnum testified for the prosecution and presented a fake spirit photograph of Barnum with Lincoln's "ghost," made by Abraham Bogardus. Mumler was released. The judge, by HistoryNet's account, was "morally convinced" of fraud but found the proof insufficient. Mumler set up his studio at 170 West Springfield Street in Boston's South End. His wife, Hannah Mumler, was a healing medium.

Mary Todd Lincoln had lost her husband in 1865 and three of her four sons by 1871. After Willie's death she held séances in the White House Red Room. "Willie lives," she told her half-sister. "He comes to me every night and stands at the foot of the bed." By one account, her husband had since "appeared to her" at a Boston séance, and the medium sent her to Mumler.

A widow in mourning dress came to the studio. A heavy black veil hid her face. She gave her name as "Mrs. Lindall." According to the historian Peter Manseau, the Mumlers claimed to see the spirit of Abraham Lincoln follow her in.

Mumler told the rest in his 1875 autobiography. "I requested her to be seated, went into my darkroom, and coated a plate. When I came out I found her seated with her veil still over her face. I asked if she intended to have her picture taken with her veil. She replied, 'When you are ready, I will remove it.'"

Then the darkroom. Mumler said he did not know his sitter until the negative came up. A pale, bearded figure stood behind the seated widow. Its translucent hands rested on her shoulders, seeming to console her. Only after he recognized the image of the martyred President, Mumler said, did he realize the woman was Mary Todd Lincoln.

One account, from the College of Psychic Studies, says she "had to be encouraged by Mumler's wife (a medium) to identify her husband on the photo." Some later captions name a second spirit too. Her son Tad.

At the 1869 trial, photographers had shown that double exposure could produce such ghosts. No one ever proved how Mumler made this one. In 2022 Mark Osterman of the George Eastman Museum proposed a sleight of hand. Pass the real negative around for inspection. Then slip a prepared "ghost" negative beneath it during printing. Osterman recreated a Mary and Abraham image to demonstrate.

Others looked at the veil. Lincoln's face was among the most widely published in the country. HistoryNet calls the claim of not recognizing the widow the weak point in Mumler's story, and the picture "a touching, if sadly preposterous, fake." Joe Nickell wrote that Mumler "was exposed as a fraud when people recognized that some of the supposed spirits were still among the living." Manseau calls him "surely a fraud."

Mumler dated the sitting to late February 1872, in a letter to the Boston Record. Other sources place it anywhere from 1869 to the early 1870s. He called it his most famous portrait. It is probably the best-known spirit photograph ever made. The original is held in the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne.

Manseau offers three ways to read it: as evidence of spirit contact, as a symbol of national mourning, or as "an image of solace" for a grieving widow. Mary Todd Lincoln chose. She "believed in this image throughout the rest of her days," Manseau says, and "no one could dissuade her that it did not mean that Abraham Lincoln was still by her side."