The last photo of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln was taken in 1871 six years after the president’s assassination.
OK, not really.
Photographer William Mumler developed a scam of putting shadowy images in his subject’s portraits and convincing them that they were spirits of loved ones. Mrs. Lincoln was among those who sat for him.
Photography was a new thing at the time and the idea of double exposure was not well known.
P.T. Barnum, who understood how gullible people can be, had Mumler pegged. He had a photo of himself taken with Lincoln’s ghost to demonstrate the fraud.
Barnum was disgusted that Mumler was taking advantage of people’s grief.
