Women and Spiritualism / Camp Chesterfield

Location: 50 Lincoln Dr., Chesterfield (Madison County), Indiana 46017

Installed 2023 Indiana Historical Bureau, William G. Pomeroy Foundation, Indiana Association of Spiritualists, and Friends of Camp Chesterfield Foundation

ID#: 48.2023.1

Learn more about Camp Chesterfield and how to spiritualist movement provided leadership opportunities for women before they gained the right to vote with IHB’s Talking Hoosier History podcast.

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Side One

Women and Spiritualism

Camp Chesterfield, a Spiritualist camp opened in the 1890s, provided leadership and public speaking opportunities for women in an era before they could legally vote. Spiritualism gained popularity after the devastation of the Civil War, as Americans sought to communicate with spirits of loved ones. Many women were ordained and respected for their spiritual guidance.

Side Two

Camp Chesterfield

Lecturer Amelia Colby-Luther and suffragist Flora Hardin Millspaugh were critical in organizing Camp Chesterfield. Women oversaw camp operations, led fundraising efforts, delivered lectures, and earned an income as mediums. Under Rev. Mable Riffle’s leadership (ca. 1910-1961), the camp expanded exponentially, drawing thousands of visitors annually from across the U.S.

Annotated Text

Side One

Women and Spiritualism

Camp Chesterfield, a Spiritualist camp opened in the 1890s, provided leadership and public speaking opportunities for women in an era before they could legally vote.^[1] Spiritualism gained popularity after the devastation of the Civil War, as Americans sought to communicate with spirits of loved ones. Many women were ordained and respected for their spiritual guidance.^[2]

Side Two

Camp Chesterfield

Lecturer Amelia Colby-Luther and suffragist Flora Hardin Millspaugh were critical in organizing Camp Chesterfield.^[3] Women oversaw camp operations, led fundraising efforts, delivered lectures, and earned an income as mediums.^[4] Under Rev. Mable Riffle’s leadership (ca. 1910-1961), the camp expanded exponentially, drawing thousands of visitors annually from across the U.S.^[5]

Summary:

After the devastation of the Civil War, Spiritualism gained popularity with Americans as they sought to communicate with the spirits of lost loved ones. Indiana was no exception and by the 1880s, Hoosiers founded the Indiana Association of Spiritualists Association (IASA). Members, including Amelia Colby-Luther and Dr. and Mary Westerfield, helped establish Camp Chesterfield in the following decade. The Spiritualist camp would become one of the oldest, continually-operating Spiritualist camps in the country.

Originally a modest operation, Camp Chesterfield attracted visitors who sought spiritual readings and guidance, participated in seances, and found rejuvenation in nature. Under Rev. Mable Riffle’s leadership, the camp expanded exponentially. According to Chesterfield Lives, Riffle “took control of the destiny of Camp Chesterfield about 1909 and, until her death in 1961, was the strong guiding hand that shaped the Camp.” Through her administrative prowess, two hotels, a chapel, multiple cottages, and meticulously landscaped outdoor areas were added to the 40-acre campus. By the 1920s, Camp Chesterfield drew thousands of visitors each summer from around the US, and even from countries like Japan.

By 1930, Riffle had developed a “cohesive, professional staff of mediums.” These women oversaw camp operations, led fundraising efforts, delivered lectures, earned an income as a medium, and even owned property at the camp. Spiritualism allowed them to circumvent leadership barriers at traditional churches and imbued them with authority. According to Ann Braude’s Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women’s Rights in the Nineteenth-Century America, “Spiritualism’s greatest contribution to the crusade for woman’s rights probably lay in the new role of spirit medium. While reformer’s talked about woman’s autonomy, mediumship cast women in a central public role in the new religion” (p. 82).

Respected for their spiritual guidance, mediums were afforded a public role and an opportunity to engage in public speaking, often through trance lectures. Many mediums, like Flora Hardin Millspaugh, transferred speaking and organizational skills gained at Chesterfield into reform movements, like women’s suffrage. Millspaugh honed her marketing techniques as IASA president and press secretary, helping to draw camp visitors. Such skills likely aided in her work with the Woman’s Franchise League’s Legislative Council of Women and emboldened her to participate in the famed 1913 March on Washington. Similarly, renowned suffragist, Spiritualist, and Indianapolis native May Wright Sewall drew thousands to the camp in 1902, when she delivered a lecture about women’s role in “new internationalism.”

Camp co-founder and abolitionist, Amelia Colby-Luther, passionately engaged in a public debate at Chesterfield in 1891. According to the Muncie Daily Times, her friends expressed confidence “in the ability of their champion, for as a debater the lady had served the Republican National Committee as a speaker.” Driven by her anti-slavery views, she “took to the platform advocating the election of the lamented Lincoln, during both of his Presidential campaigns. Such able service did Mrs. Luther render the Republican party that her name became national among politicians and her service in demand in many state.” Women like Millspaugh, Sewall, and Colby-Luther exemplified Braude’s contention that “mediumship gave women a public leadership role that allowed them to remain complaint with the complex values of the period that have come to be known as the cult of womanhood” (p. 82).

Female mediums leveraged their unique spiritual skills to provide comfort to those who had lost loved ones during World War I and II, and, in doing so, supported themselves financially. Camp Chesterfield and the IASA continued to provide both spiritual services and a refuge from the stressors of modern life into the 21^st century, with women remaining integral to operations.