Date Approved
2019
Degree Type
Open Access Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department or School
History and Philosophy
Committee Member
John McCurdy, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Richard Nation, Ph.D.
Committee Member
James Egge, Ph.D.
Abstract
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 its subjectivity and thus looked to the spirits for empirical evidences of its claims. Furthermore, spiritualism is explored through a gendered lens to show that women were drawn to spiritualism to soothe their grief from a lost loved one, whereas men sought to prove spiritualism’s claims through a scientific method.
Recommended Citation
Bowlin, Daniel, "The American phantasmagoria: The rise of spiritualism in nineteenth-century America" (2019). Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations. 1008.
https://commons.emich.edu/theses/1008