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The American Phantasmagoria: The Rise Of Spiritualism In Nineteenth-Century America, Daniel Bowlin

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Spiritualism, or the belief in spirit communications through mediums, was a movement in the nineteenth century which gained popularity within America. This thesis aims to widen the scope of spiritualism’s historiography by exploring spiritualists’ lives to reveal a more complex answer to why this movement gained a large following in antebellum America. The stories of spiritualists show that spiritualism rose in nineteenth century America because the culture placed death in the periphery, leaving certain Americans unresolved and therefore looking to the Victorian death culture for closure from a lost relationship. Additionally, spiritualists saw the muddled religious system as proof of …