Between Eccentricity and Morbidity

Abstract

This examination asserts that artist and photographer Hannah Maynard’s association with late-nineteenth-century North American organizations that advocated the often-repudiated notion of the possibility of spiritual life after physical death informed her photographs. Spiritualists offered numerous examples of alternative existences after corporeal demise, and this paper will explore the possibility that Maynard used her knowledge to re-create and re-interpret late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century perceptions of a realm of Spirit.