Margaret Fox was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Spiritualist, born in Bath

Bath, New Brunswick

Bath is a village on the Saint John River in Carleton County, New Brunswick, Canada. As of 2006 the population was 592, now in 2008 it is 512. It has an elementary and a middle school. Bath is the birthplace of Buzz Hargrove, former president of the Canadian Auto Workers, and Rev. Brent Hawkes.The...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. In approximately 1848, in Hydesville

Arcadia, New York

Arcadia is a town in Wayne County, New York, United States. The population was 14,889 at the 2000 census.The Town of Arcadia is on the south border of the county and is east of Rochester NY.- History :The town was first settled around 1791....

, Wayne, County

Wayne County, New York

Wayne County is a county located in the US state of New York. It is part of the Rochester, New York Metropolitan Statistical Area and lies on the south shore of Lake Ontario, forming part of the northern border of the United States with Canada. The name honors General Anthony Wayne, an American...

, NY, the Foxes claimed to hear rapping noises, which appeared to emit from the walls and furniture, in their residence. Margaret and her two sisters, Catherine and Leah, discovered that by means of a given code, communication could be established with presumably supernatural agency by which the raps were produced.

The Fox sisters

Fox sisters

The Fox sisters were three sisters from New York who played an important role in the creation of Spiritualism. The three sisters were Leah Fox , Margaret Fox and Kate Fox . The two younger sisters used "rappings" to convince their much older sister and others that they were communicating with...

 gave public séance

Séance

A séance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" comes from the French word for "seat," "session" or "sitting," from the Old French "seoir," "to sit." In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma"...

s in America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. Their séances attracted notable people including William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post.-Youth and education:...

, George Bancroft

George Bancroft

George Bancroft was an American historian and statesman who was prominent in promoting secondary education both in his home state and at the national level. During his tenure as U.S. Secretary of the Navy, he established the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1845...

, James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...

, Nathaniel Parker Willis

Nathaniel Parker Willis

Nathaniel Parker Willis , also known as N. P. Willis, was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. For a time, he was the employer of former...

, Horace Greeley

Horace Greeley

Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery...

, Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth was the self-given name, from 1843 onward, of Isabella Baumfree, an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, she...

 and William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...

. So-called "mediums" became numerous, and the investigation of spiritualistic phenomena interested many. In 1888, Margaret made a confession of imposture, which she later retracted. She published a book in 1866, The Love Life of Dr. Kane, in which she wrote of correspondence with the person whom she asserted was her husband, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane

Elisha Kane

Elisha Kent Kane was a medical officer in the United States Navy during the first half of the 19th century. He was a member of two Arctic expeditions to rescue the explorer Sir John Franklin...

.

Further reading

• Rubin Stuart, Nancy. The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox . New York: Harcourt, 2005.
• Weisberg, Barbara. Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004. ISBN 0-06-075060X