Children dressed up in costumes for Halloween. from the Daily Reflector (Greenville, N.C.), 1950’s
What better way to wrap up American Archives month then with a Halloween stroll through the Digital Public Library of America. From turn of the century Hallow’een postcards through photos from the 1950’s we get a taste of Halloween in America during the first half of the 20th century. From the small town to the segregated South to the Japanese American internment camps of WWII Halloween offered an opportunity to shed the daily trials and tribulations and have some fun.
Enjoy!
A little boy examines a Halloween display of two jack o’lanterns and a scarecrow cutout. Undated. Daily Reflector (Greenville, N.C.)
Group of children wearing Halloween costumes, ca 1950’s. Daily Reflector (Greenville, N.C.)
Memphis, Tennessee, Beale Street, October 1939. by Marion Post Wolcott. NYPL
5. Postcard Hallow’een greeting. 1908
Postcard The witch, nd NYPL
Central School Halloween Party by Leo J. ‘Scoop’ Leeburn Photographs, 1946 Idaho State Historical Society
Japanese American group of evacuees in Halloween costumes and make-up at the Harvest Festival on October 31, 1942 at the Tule Lake Relocation Center in California during World War II
Dog and cat enjoy Halloween by Leslie Jones [ca. 1940]
Kids in Halloween costume by Leslie Jones, 1938
Happy Halloween!