Seaside life. Man standing ready to catch a woman coming down with a swallow dive.

Photograph from the Dutch illustrated magazine ‘Het Leven’ (bathing issue), 1937.

Collectie SPAARNESTAD PHOTO/Het Leven

Uniformed Letter Carrier with Child in Mailbag

Description: This city letter carrier posed for a humorous photograph with a young boy in his mailbag. After parcel post service was introduced in 1913, at least two children were sent by the service. With stamps attached to their clothing, the children rode with railway and city carriers to their destination. The Postmaster General quickly issued a regulation forbidding the sending of children in the mail after hearing of those examples.

Creator/Photographer: Unidentified photographer

Medium: Black and white photographic print

Culture: American

Geography: USA

Date: 1900

Collection: U.S. Postal Employees

Repository: National Postal Museum

These photographs of ‘spirits’ are taken from an album of photographs unearthed in a Lancashire second-hand and antiquarian bookshop by one of the Museum’s curators. They were taken by a controversial medium called William Hope (1863-1933).

Born in 1863 in Crewe, Hope started his working life as a carpenter. In about 1905 he became interested in spirit photography after capturing the supposed image of a ghost while photographing a friend.

He went on to found the Crewe Circle – a group of six spirit photographers led by Hope. When Archbishop Thomas Colley joined the group they began to publicise their work.

Following World War I support for the Crewe Circle grew as the grieving relatives of those lost to the war sought a means of contacting their loved ones.

By 1922 Hope had moved to London where he became a professional medium. The work of the Crew Circle was investigated on various occasions.

The most famous of these took place in 1922, when the Society for Psychical Research sent Harry Price to investigate the group.

Price collected evidence that Hope was substituting glass plates bearing ghostly images in order to produce his spirit photographs.

Later the same year Price published his findings, exposing Hope as a fraudster. However, many of Hope’s most ardent supporters spoke out on his behalf, the most famous being Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Hope continued to practice, despite his exposure. He died in London on 7 March 1933.

via Flickr Commons / National Media Museum

Woman with two boys and a female spirit

Around 1920, William Hope.

Collection of National Media Museum

Two women with a spirit

By William Hope

The face of a young woman appears over the woman on the right of the photograph. The reverse of the photograph reads: ‘Why is the child always pushing to the front?’ and ‘Do we get messages from the higher spirits?’; perhaps questions the women wanted answering. One of the sitters, at Hope’s request, has signed the plate for authentication.

Collection of National Media Museum

Man with the spirit of his second wife

By William Hope

A woman’s face appears in ‘misty’ drapes around the man. He was said to have been asked to sit for a photograph by a voice heard at a seance held on 6 May 1923. This man had also identified the ‘spirit’ of his deceased first wife in an earlier photograph.

Collection of National Media Museum

A seance

A photograph of a group gathered at a seance, taken by William Hope (1863-1933) in about 1920. The information accompanying the spirit album states that the table is levitating. In reality, the image of a ghostly arm has been superimposed over the table using a double exposure.

Collection of National Media Museum

Three Dutch Women

Notes: Identified as ‘Mother and her two daughters from Zuid-Beveland, province of Zeeland, The Netherlands’ in Peter Mesenholler ‘Augustus F. Sherman: Ellis Island Portraits 1905-1920’ (c1905) p.57.

Source: William Williams papers / Photographs of immigrants (more info)

Repository: The New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division.

Group photograph captioned ‘Hungarian Gypsies all of whom were deported’ in The New York Times, Sunday Feb. 12, 1905.

Sherman, Augustus F. (Augustus Francis) — Photographer. 1902-1905

Notes: N.d., but 1905, just after Commissioner Williams’ resignation. When the same photograph appeared in ‘City life and municipal facts’ (June 8, 1911), it was called ‘A family of Servian Gypses.’ (Both clippings appear in the Williams scrapbooks: Vol. I, p. 71 back; and Vol. II, p. 55 front.) This photo appears in Dunne, Thomas. ‘Ellis Island’ (W.W. Norton & Co., 1971), p. [62].

Source: Photographs of Ellis Island, 1902-1913. (more info)

Repository: The New York Public Library. Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs.

Italian woman

Sherman, Augustus F. (Augustus Francis) — Photographer. [ca. 1906-1914]

Source: William Williams papers / Photographs of immigrants (more info)

Repository: The New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division.