IN THE HOUSES OF THEIR DEAD

A tale of two historically prominent families who shared a fascination with spiritualism.

That John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, is universally known, but no member of either family had met until that day—despite the fact that two Booth brothers and their father were nationally known actors and the Lincolns had attended their performances. Historian Alford cuts back and forth among the lives of Abraham and Mary Lincoln and Junius Booth and his sons Edwin and John Wilkes without ignoring lesser-known members of both families. Faithful to his theme, Alford reminds readers that 19th-century America was rife with superstition, and all of his subjects possessed elements of the true believer. Lincoln, for example, “refused to become the thirteenth person at a table once,” and the deaths of spouses and children were a common obsession. “Quasi-religious in nature,” writes Alford, “spiritualism held that the dead were nearby.” Skeptics abounded, and everyone agreed that many mediums were charlatans, but believers had no doubt that some could summon the dead. Although a skeptic about some aspects of spiritualism, Lincoln attended séances and sometimes praised the mediums, but he did not take them seriously. This was definitely not the case with his wife, Mary, devastated by the deaths of two children, her husband, and then another child; she remained a devoted spiritualist to her dying day. With a father and three sons on the stage, the Booths were no strangers to torment, mental illness, and personal tragedy, and they indulged in anything that might relieve their misery—although alcohol competed effectively with the occult. In the end, spiritualism contributed little to American politics of the time or even to theatrical history, but it preoccupied a good portion of the population. Nonetheless, even history buffs will find new information in Alford’s sympathetic examination.

Niche history but a good read.