SWIFT, Mr. Museum of Wonders. Spirit Rappings, Brilliant Experiments. Queer, Curious & Amazing. Philadelphia: Scott’s Steam-Press Printing Establishment, ca. 1851. Large letterpress broadside printed on thin stock with a central wood-engraved image of a telegraph-like device and advertising the exposé of the “great humbug” of “spiritual rappings” by Swift, along with demonstrations of a wide range of electrical devices including burglar alarms, torpedoes, and a pair of magnetic slippers. Contemporary stamp for the show’s appearance at the School House of Villanova Centre. 29 x 9 3/8”. Chips around edges, old tape reinforcements. This bill shows the furor and public appeal of the then relatively new phenomenon of spirit rapping, first demonstrated in 1848 by the Fox sisters at Hydesville New York. Mr. Swift and his brother exposed the methods of these purported mediums, combining a hot-button topic with their more regular lectures on the “miracles” of electricity. More showman than inventors Swift offered to revive a drowned rat via “galvanism,” use an electrical current to explode a quantity of gunpowder, or produce other miraculous results, all for the low price or a twenty-five-cent admission ticket (children half price, and couples 37 cents). (See Harlow, Old Wires and New Waves. The History of the Telegraph, Telephone and Wireless. New York, London: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1936.)