Victorians, they’re just like us! Er, well, kinda. It’s easy to judge a group of people who strapped raw meat to their faces for beauty or fastened taxidermy cats on their hats for fashion, but their obsessions went far beyond beauty and style. They were fanatic about death, and speaking to the deceased. Today we dive into the history of Spiritualism and get familiar with one of its most famous and loyal followers, Mary Todd Lincoln.

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Sources NPS, The White House Historical Association, Daily Beast, The New Yorker, History, Smithsonian, Pearce Museum, Beyond the Veil: Spiritualism in the 19th Century, Mental Floss, Abraham Lincoln Online, History of American Women, History

Book Recs: Occult America, The Psychic Life of Abraham Lincoln

182: A Good Ol' Fashioned Séance. Presidents Park.