Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans

"The advent of modern American spiritualism took place in the 1850s and continued as a viable faith into the 1870s. Because of its diversity and openness to new cultures and religions, New Orleans provided fertile ground to nurture Spiritualism ... Melissa Daggett focuses on Le cercle harmonique, the francophone séance circle of Henry Louis Rey (1831-1894), a Creole of color who was a key civil rights activist, author, and Civil War and Reconstruction leader. ... Spiritualism in nineteenth-century New Orleans focuses on the turbulent years between the late antebellum period and the end of Reconstruction through the eyes of the séance registers"--