$700

This daguerreotype, in a 4 ¾” x 6 ¼” plain brown morocco leather case, depicts James Valentine Mansfield with his wife Mary Hopkinson Mansfield and their son John Worthington Mansfield. It is the only known daguerreotype of the Mansfields.

About this Collection: The James V. Mansfield Papers

The William L. Clements Library had the unprecedented opportunity to acquire a large portion of the papers of James V. Mansfield (1817-1899), his wife Mary Hopkinson Mansfield (b. ca. 1827), and their children John Worthington Mansfield (1849-1933) and Mary Gertrude Mansfield (1854-1922). James Mansfield was born in 1817 in Massachusetts and worked as an itinerant penmanship teacher and a dry goods merchant in Boston before establishing himself as a spiritualist medium in 1857. James Mansfield’s services included delivering séances in person or acting as a writing medium. You were able to send to Mansfield a letter to a deceased family member or friend, and he would channel the departed, who would then respond to the unopened letter. Mansfield would return the reply and the original letter for a fee. For this service he gained the moniker “spirit postmaster,” and is now recognized as one of the founders of the American spiritualist movement, alongside Charles Foster and Henry Slade.