American Experience

Season 7 Episode 5: Telegrams from the Dead

For 40 years, a new religion called spiritualism affected the nation as no other ever had. Abraham Lincoln, P.T. Barnum, Frederick Douglass, senators, and scientists argued over the discoveries of the spirit world as revealed through mediums. Congress debated whether to provide $40,000 to research the feasibility of using the new wireless technology to reach the other world. But by 1880, as one spectacular fraud after another was revealed, the movement began to fade.

Genre:

Documentary

Seasons:

37

Episodes:

396

Cast:

Quality:

HD

Duration:

55 min

First Air:

1988

Rating:

6.5