Spooky and Ghosty: Hallowe’en by PostCard

Do you send postcards? I occasionally send one to a family member not acquainted with Great Sand Dunes or Indianapolis Children’s Museum. But I rarely use them to just say Hi –and almost never for holiday greetings.

In the early decades of the 20th Century, postcards were the preferred form of communication. (Some 900 million postcards were mailed in 1913 alone – that’s 9 cards per person, more than I’ve sent in the past decade!) In fact, Collector’s Weekly calls them the text messages of their day — cheap and quick greetings that could be sent for any reason, or no reason at all: Hello, Get Well, Having a Wonderful Time, Love You — and, of course, Happy Halloween.

Halloween postcards from this era show us a world of silliness and romance, where cucumbers dance, Mr. Right waits at the other end of an apple, and foretelling the future is as harmless as watching nuts roast on the fire. The horrors of WWI were yet to come, and the dread fears of Samhain had morphed into parlor game rituals that nobody took very seriously. Though at the time it was technically the vigil of a holy day of obligation, All Hallows Evening seems far more devoted to comfortable thrills, romance, and entertaining divination than to prayer and fasting.

Telling (not too) spooky Ghost Stories in the dark must have been especially thrilling in the 1900s since people were, literally, sitting in the dark (Electricity wasn’t commonplace until 1930 or so). Another old and popular activity you’ll see on old postcards is people carving Jack-o-Lanterns — though it seems those grimacing orange heads came in handy for many “spooky and ghosty” images in 1912 as well.

In fact, many of the icons and traditions we still observe are present in the art of these early postcards (excepting, perhaps, anthropomorphized fruit and dancing red devils). Pictures of witches and black cats, pumpkins and ghosts, even owls, are abundant. Rarely are the images frightening, or bloody — most are cute or goofy, and often “icky” — even the Devils. (In fact, one “red devil” postcard was used by a Saint Paul Society as an invitation to a Hallowe’en party. We were, indeed, a long way from Samhain…)

As for Witches, though they were sometimes portrayed as grandmotherly crones, they were just as likely to be children or “pretty young things.” Witch-spotting was great fun for Halloween night –and more importantly, witches could sometimes be depended upon to bring good luck and fortune.

Now Luck was pretty much the name of the Halloween Game in 1910. We don’t remember this much today, but even something as energetic as Bobbing for Apples was once connected to luck and love. Some say this parlor fun is as old as the Romans, who claimed that whoever grabbed the apple first would be the first to marry. Others describe another game where players attempt to capture the apple “named” for their sweetheart. Some say that if you put the Lucky Apple (the apple snagged by bobbing) under your pillow, you will dream about your future sweetheart on Halloween night. And others claim that if you throw the peel over your shoulder, you’ll discover (or confirm) the first (or last; interpretation is open) initial of your future spouse.

But –judging by the frequency with which it appears on postcards — the most popular use of the Lucky Apple is this one:

Another superstition tells a girl the fruit to eat.
As she combs her hair at midnight, if she would her true love meet.
He will gaze into her mirror where his image will be found,
But for fear that he will vanish, she must NEVER LOOK AROUND!

The Jolly Hallowe’en Book (Internet Archive)

There are many variations of the Mirror Charm: Stare into a wall mirror or use a hand mirror; walk backwards or forwards, up or down the stairway; hold a candle (or not); brush your hair (or not); play at midnight or anytime; recite a chant or be silent. But, as I said, by the turn of the Century, these kinds of folk practices don’t seem to have been taken very seriously (even if once they were), and many a postcard poked gentle fun at them.

Sometimes, though, looking through old pages and postcards makes you wonder at some of the stunts people considered “fun” in the past. Pouring melted lead into water to “read” in the shapes the occupation of one’s future husband is one such. Jumping lighted candles (presumably in the era’s long dresses) to find one’s marriage month — or snatching raisins from a bowl of burning brandy to see who will marry first — just don’t seem sane. One particularly dangerous “test of skill” involved a spinning bar with an apple at one end and a lighted candle at the other. Contestants tried to “snap” the apple as it came around, often with less than the desired results.

As you might expect from an age when people laughed in the face of a lighted candle, All Hallows Eve also meant daring capers like ringing doorbells, setting off fire alarms, stealing gates, raiding gardens, upending chicken houses, and attaching tapping sticks (called “tick-tacks”) to windows. At some point Mischief Night antics got out of hand and people began to view them as vandalism. To occupy overly-mischievous children, Communities hosted large parties and parades – and some say Trick-or-Treating began as a way of bribing –er, encouraging– young pranksters to accept candy in place of gates and vegetables.

Given how old these postcards are, it’s pretty amazing that so many are still around to reveal the thrilling parlor stunts, ghosty mirrors, and spooky pumpkins of the pre-WWI decades. I guess we have all the people who wrote out, mailed — and saved — Halloween Greetings to thank for that.

Apple anyone?

HomeSchool Go 2 Postscript
What Can You Add to This Exploration?

Look at the Celtic and/or Roman origins of Halloween

Learn more about the history of postcards

1908 was a good year for postcards. Make a timeline to show what else was happening that year

Many of the above images come from the database of products published by Raphael Tuck & Sons, a company you can read about here

Find out more about Frances Brundage, who illustrated some of the Halloween cards shown above

Narrate and/or illustrate the Tale of Stingy Jack and his Turnip Lantern (or, put on a puppet show or quick skit)

Some activities discussed above were included in Jolly Hallowe’en, available at the Internet Archive (I don’t think the assigned publication date of 1900 is correct, BTW). Find a few favorites and give them a try

Figure out how to “steal a gate” (but, obviously, don’t actually do it)