My OBT

What if you spent every day looking for One Beautiful Thing?

Vintage Creeps

by 7 Comments

When I was a child of about 10, my mother’s parents moved in with us. While helping them unpack, I remember coming across a few old photos of my mother and uncle as children in the 1930s in their Halloween costumes. I was utterly perplexed. Though they were a wholesome, happy family, the children’s handmade costumes were super creepy. I don’t know what happened to those photos; I don’t remember ever seeing them again. But they nonetheless stuck with me, and I have been fascinated by the Halloween getups of yesteryear ever since.

There’s just something extra frightening about vintage costumes, especially the homemade variety. I thought it might be fun to explore some of the costumes photos I found from the first half of the 20th century. For pure nightmare fuel, they blow today’s costumes out of the water.

Happy Halloween, all!

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Children celebrate Halloween at Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, Massachusetts, 1925. The 1925 Perkins Annual Report relates the excitement of the boys and fierce competition in making the most grosteque mask and spooky jack-o'-lantern of the class. Eight boys, who were “experienced in plastic work and eager to make something novel and grotesque” were given clay to make a mask based on the contours of their face to which “horns, large ears or bulbous noses” could be added. These were then covered in paper mache, shellacked and painted white by the two boys with some vision. The final touches included “red and black lines and spots for clown, demon, faun or rascally effects" added by the teacher who also trimmed the mask. Robert Rosenbloom, an upper school student, recalls the festivities began with the ringing of bells and the boys lining up "to shake hands with the Witch.” He describes ducking for apples, eating donuts hanging from a string and, worryingly, trying to “get pennies from a pail of water which was charged with electricity.” There were games and an auction where unwanted items were tied up in a bundle and auctioned off using peanuts instead of money. The festivities ended with cider, snacks, and a ghost story. For amazing archive with many more stories than this see @perkinsarchives #folkhorror #folklore #halloween #witches #newenglandfolklore #grotesque #vintagehalloweencostumes #vintagehorror #perkinsarchives

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#vintagehalloweencostumes

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Author: Donna from MyOBT

I have committed to spending part of every day looking for at least one beautiful thing, and sharing what I find with you lovelies!

7 thoughts on “Vintage Creeps”

Leave a comment

  1. Violet
    October 31, 2020 at 8:41 am

    OMG those are terrifying!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  3. Alice DeForest
    October 31, 2020 at 3:50 pm

    Very creepy stuff going on, happy Halloween

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  4. StellaKate Blue
    November 7, 2020 at 1:48 pm

    Sooo creepy.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

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