Abstract
Philadelphia Spiritualism investigates a short-lived episode involving a presumed spirit summoned by late nineteenth-century mediums in London and Philadelphia. Author Stephanie Hoover uses the case study, written in the style of a true-crime tale, to expose the fraud and fakery of the spiritualists of that era.The “curious case” of Katie King is situated within a long line of charlatanism dating back to the late 1850s, when the spiritualism movement arose in Hydesville, New York. It was there that the Fox sisters discovered that they could crack their toe joints to make a rapping sound. They perfected the ability and used it to convince the nation that the sound was being made by spirits who had come back to talk to the living. The Fox sisters set into motion a mass transatlantic movement that inspired millions of believers.