The Fox Sisters

Te’a Olivas

The Fox Sisters were known to be famous for being the creators of spiritualism. The spirits communicate with people known as psychics and mediums. That is what you can call the Fox sisters. The names of the three sisters were Margaret, Kate and Leah Fox. In 1848, the sisters lived in Hydesville, New York. The Fox sisters started to believe in spirits because they heard unusual noises throughout the house they lived in. They were convinced the house was haunted. The noises they would hear included furniture being move and knocking. The fox sisters decided to come up with a prank to scare the mother into believing in the bad spirits and ghost in the house. After all, the mother didn’t need a prank to be convinced that there was a ghost in house. She started to ask questions to the ghost by asking it to knock and answers the questions getting ask by moments in the house. Soon after, The Fox family found out there was a murder in their house two years earlier. The spirit was known as an older man in his early thirties who was married with five children of his own. That is when the sisters started to communicate with spirits. The Fox sisters claimed that they could receive messages for people from different spirits amongst the dead. The sisters started to perform rapping’s that were similar to the noises happening in the house. For example, the fox sisters used their toes for the crackling noises. The noises in the house triggered the Fox sisters to produce creative ideas about spiritual rapping’s. The sisters perform their very first rapping at Corinthian Hall in Rochester. The sisters wanted people to believe in spirits after the rapping’s to prove they could communicate with spirits, and can deliver messages from the spirits. Many people in the 1800's questioned the Fox sisters on if the rapping’s were real. Did the Fox sisters communicate with spirits? It was even more difficult to believe because one of the sisters claimed that communicating with the spirits were fake as well as the rapping’s that were performed in the 1800's. Until this day the world has no evidence that the rapping’s were real or fake. We will never know if the Fox sisters really communicated with spirits. The fox sisters will always be famous for their mysterious and suspenseful performances.

Work Cited:
Bann, Jennifer. "Ghostly Hands and Ghostly Agency: The Changing Figure of the Nineteenth-Century Specter." Victorian Studies 51.4 (2009): 663-85. 
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.usca.edu:2048/stable/pdf/10.2979/vic.2009.51.4.663.pdf

"Speaking With Spirits." Skeptic 19.2 (2014): 65. Academic Search Premier. 8 Oct. 2016. http://ezproxy.usca.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=96430250&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Stuart, Nancy Rubin. "The Raps Heard Around The World." American History 40.3 (2005): 42-80. Academic Search Premier. 8 Oct. 2016, http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.usca.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=11&sid=657367c5-b699-4264-bdde-ec45603b2b42%40sessionmgr102&hid=113

Walliss, John. "Continuing Bonds: Relationships Between The Living And The Dead Within Contemporary Spiritualism." Mortality 6.2 (2001): 127-145. Academic Search Premier. 15 Oct. 2016. http://ezproxy.usca.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=6006954&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Williams, Kathy. Western Folklore 69.1 (2010): 131-32. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.usca.edu:2048/stable/pdf/25735293.pdf.


Links for Further Research:

Valente, K. G. ""Who Will Explain the Explanation?": The Ambivalent Reception of Higher Dimensional Space in the British Spiritualist Press, 1875-1900." Victorian Periodicals Review 41.2 (2008): 124-49. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.usca.edu:2048/stable/40587440. 
This source from the web, the John Hopkins University, gives information on how spiritualism begun. Also, it provides who was involve in creating spiritualism.

Monroe, John. "Making the Séance "Serious": "Tables Tournantes" and Second Empire Bourgeois Culture, 1853-1861." History of Religions 38.3 (1999): 219-46. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.usca.edu:2048/stable/40587440. This web source, from University of Chicago, provides information about the Fox sisters experiences in the house that influence them to communicate with spirits. It gives information about the spiritual rapping performed by the Fox sisters.


Kattelman, Beth A. "Magic, Monsters, and Movies: America's Midnight Ghost Shows." Theatre Journal 62.1 (2010): 23-39. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.usca.edu:2048/stable/40587440. This web source, from the John Hopkins University, provides information about how spiritualism grew after the world heard about the Fox sister’s experiences. People started to be involved in the sisters spiritual rapping performances.

The Haunting of Willard Library

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Have you ever felt a spooky or creepy sensation following you in a library? Well the infamous Willard Library is the place that has those same effects on other people. Willard’s Library is in Evansville, Indiana. The spooky sensation I am referring to is The Grey Lady of Willard’s Library. In this instance, every ghost is not here to cause havoc but she just wanders. Willard Library is designed the library in a Victorian Gothic style; this style of narrow shapes and ornamentation emphasizes height. Famous examples of Victorian Gothic styles would be Notre Dame in Paris and Chartres Cathedral in Chartres, France. It is the oldest library in the state of Indiana, it contains a treasure trove of local historical archives and genealogy materials. 

The Grey Lady was first reported in the late 1930’s by a custodian. It is said to believe that Louise Carpenter, daughter of William Carpenter, is the ghost of the library. William was the man who gave most of his life earnings to support the library. She was very angry and sued the library for her father’s estate, bust she lost. People of Evansville say she held a grudge against the library and trustees, give the reason that she might haunt the library. Louise died in 1908, in Newark, NJ, 29 years before the first reported sighting of the Grey Lady. Psychics have been to the library; some have said it was Louise but others say it’s not. One psychic went in to a trance when she went into the library. A trance is a half-conscious state characterized by an absence of response to external stimuli, typically as induced by hypnosis or entered by a medium. She was in a trance so long her husband had to coax her out. She says the ghost is not Louise, although Margaret Maier described her correctly. She says she communicated with the ghost although the ghost could not speak. The psychic says the ghost was overwhelmed with grief, maybe a loss of a loved one. In the distance, she saw a small child near a body of water. She is implying that the way the ghost responded to her, it could not be Louise, who had a grudge held against the library and may have had bad intentions if she was the ghost.

Works cited:

 Davis, Rich. “Lady in Grey Offers Haunting Tour of Willard Library.” Newsbank. Evansville Courier & Press (IN). 27 Oct. 2007.  http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/11CAFB671F5A88F8?p=NewsBank.

Hager, Greg. “Welcome to Willard Library.” Willard Library. Willard Library. http://www.willard.lib.in.us/contact_us/index.php.

Mayon,, John. “The Willard Library: Most Haunted Library in the U.S.?” The Ghost Libraries. The Ghost Library. http://theghostdiaries.com/the-willard-library-most-haunted-library-in-the-u-s/.

Sheckler, Jackie, and Sunday Herald-Times. “‘Grey Lady’ haunts Evansville library.” Herald-Times. Herald-Times. 31 October 1999. http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/search/nb?p=NewsBank&b=results&action=search&t=country%3AUSA%21USA%2Fstate%3AIN%21USA%2B-%2BIndiana&fld0=alltext&val0=the+grey+lady&bln1=AND&fld1=YMD_date&val1=&sort=_rank_%3AD.

“Tracking the Grey Lady.” Library Ghost. Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group. http://courierpressblogs.com/libraryghost/. 

Links for Further Research:

Willard Ghost

http://www.willardghost.com/. 

It is general information about the Grey Lady

The Paranormal Guide

http://www.theparanormalguide.com/blog/the-ghosts-of-willard-library. 

It talks about the figures seen in the video footage

Ghost of the Prairie

http://www.prairieghosts.com/willard.html. 

Gives an overview of the library and the Grey Lady