Golden Era Halloween

[St. Louis]

I'd like to celebrate Halloween in Golden Era style. We still get a lot of trick-or-treaters here in St. Louis, and most of them are very creative with their costumes. This year I want to do it up right, more or less in the age of my tiny bungalow (circa 1929.)

I found a wonderful book dated to 1938, titled Holiday Handicrafts, that encourages children who disguise themselves in masks and play "harmless pranks." The book has instructions for all kinds of crafts, like jack-o-lanterns made from paper plates and cats made from orange cellophane and filled with popcorn. My impression is that kids were capable of making all kinds of fancy decorations and gifts from paper, glue, and objects found around the house. I thought I'd try a few of the decorations and carve a real pumpkin.

Do you folks have any suggestions? And what are you doing for Halloween?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Caramel apples, candy apples, and popcorn balls were the treats de rigueur of the 1930s, which was around the time the kid-oriented American Halloween really took root in recognizable form, as opposed to Halloween being a time for adolescent males to get drunk and vandalize property, which had been the dominant mode of the holiday prior to about WWI. This was the also era when store-bought decorations like those fold-out crepe-paper pumpkins and die-cut cardboard skeletons really caught on with the drugstore-shopping public. Orange and black construction paper chains stuck together with Cico Paste were inescapable.

Pop-culture-character costumes were catching on big during these years, and if you were throwing a party in 1938, among most common costumes you'd find people wearing would be Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Tarzan, Popeye and Olive Oyl, Mickey Mouse, and Charlie McCarthy. No superheroes yet, and no "sexy" nurses, schoolteachers, secretaries, librarians, nuns, maids, dental hygenists, or punch-press operators.

Me, I'll be working on Halloween, as I always do, but I'll be handing out free sample bags of fresh popcorn to any small creatures who find their way into the lobby.

 

[GHT]

Halloween has only caught on in the UK during the past twenty or so years. We used to have a celebration we called Bonfire Night. This dated back to 1605 when conspirators tried to blow up The Houses of Parliament, overthrow the new protestant religion and restore Catholicism. There were nine conspirators and the one who was to light the fuse was named Guido Fawkes better known as Guy Fawkes. The event became known as The Gunpowder Plot, and the date was November 5th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_Plot
In an age of enlightenment, Bonfire Night has fallen out of favour, although there are organised firework displays. Business leaders and retailers saw a market across the pond for a replacement to Bonfire Night and so Halloween has taken off, but without the trick or treat element.
Halloween has become something of a cult among adults too, with all things witchy. There's many an event themed around Halloween, or to give it it's correct title, All Hallows. We are going to a burlesque inspired night, dating back to The Era, my wife and her friend will be styling the performers hair. What will I wear? Well Harry Potter and Hogwarts have put fresh impetus into Halloween but I still feel too self conscious to dress up, but I need not worry, as ever my lady has the perfect solution:

 

[2jakes]

Halloween costumes were mostly homemade.

Masks were made using paper mache.

By the 1930s Halloween costumes were being mass produced particularly those modeled after beloved cartoons, thanks to new licensing deals with Walt Disney.

Halloween Eve...I'll be handing out candy to the kids and watching"Arsenic & Old Lace".
I never tire of watching Peter Lore's
creepy look and laugh as he makes his escape at the end.

 

[2jakes]

Don't try this at home unless you don't want the "children of the night" to pay you a visit!

Bike forum member thought it was a cute idea to display the "wicked witch" on Halloween Eve.
He was ready with candy goodies for the kids except no one showed up.
They were too scared!