Halloween In The 1920s
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- Опубліковано 14 жов 2024
- Here's a fun little surprise video about Halloween in the 1920s to take a break from the dark stories about murderers. There's a little bit of background about what the state of Halloween was, then I do some commentary about some costumes of the day.
The clowns with the diamond shaped cut outs on their black and white costumes are Harlequin clowns. They are famous for comic pantomime. The large paper mache head looks like Vanzetti from Sacco and Vanzetti. They were supposed to have robbed a payroll in Braintree Mass in 1920.
The destructive mischief on Halloween, still existed in the 70's, 80's and 90's in New England and the Midwest.
I think you've got a cut on some slack most of the costumes were homemade so that's why they look so terrifying I love the costumes that were in the booklets you showed like the butterfly
Agree
Those costumes were ugly, they could scare werewolves and witches
@@garycarpenter2980 Good. That means they work.
Some of todays costumes are great but most have gotten out of hand most are sexy or scary or out of place and they're gotten expensive back then they had homemade ones made from discarded clothes or hand me downs or old sheets
The whole point WAS to scare away bad omens & witches etc.
The crying clown Pierrot was a hugely popular character in the 1800s and early 1900s. That clown costume is based on him, so that's why the costume was so popular. The best example of the crying clown is from the movie Children of Paradise, which is a masterpiece of cinema history.
The giant head masks may be a carryover from Europe. I visited Europe a long time ago. I can't remember what country I was in, but they had a parade where everyone was wearing these freakishly giant head costumes so apparently it was some sort of local custom.
Goes to show you, you don't need fancy expensive costumes to look scary. These are the scariest costumes I've ever seen!
I think that the key to so many of the costumes looking strange is the fact that at a time when most people couldn’t buy masks, they *made* them themselves.
I see several others have already commented the same thing. I should have looked first!
I love the way you react to some of the stranger pictures, being mostly blind, it’s hard to make them out: I have a bout A fourth of the vision of a normal person in one eye: my left, and can only see light out of the other: my rite. But your reaction is everything! Lol
damn homie get some lasik?
@@jefframos4267 don’t you think if it could be fixed with surgery I would have already gone that route I was born this way and will be this way for my entire life
@@brittanybales715 damn I’m sorry to hear that!!
@@jefframos4267 Lasik deals with the eyes themselves, it’s not my eyes that have the problem, it’s the optic nerve. The nerve which delivers information from the eye to the brain: technically my eyes work fine and so does my brain, but they don’t connect properly so the information that my eyes see doesn’t get to my brain
@@jefframos4267 i’m used to it by now: and I’m not surprised you thought it could be fixed with surgery most people nowadays think most things can be fixed with surgery and most of the time they’re right: maybe it can, in the future just not quite yet.
If you look up the real history of Halloween, like even back to it's origins, it will explain a lot as to why their costumes are darker then what we see today overall. Even the jack o lanterns were creepier. But, it pertains to what Halloween actually is.
And so many do not realize what
All Hallow's Eve is really about!!
Which is what???
@@unicornmadness6286 It’s quite benign. Halloween literally means the night (eve=‘een) before All Saints Day, a Catholic religious feast day where all the holy (hallow=sacred, holy) saints are celebrated and honored at Mass. Because Heaven is barred from all things unholy, the thought was that right before the feast day the evil spirits would get worked up and come out and haunt, bother, cause mischief to those who are God’s people, so people would put lanterns made of turnips, gourds, pumpkins in their windows to ward off evil spirits. The thought was similar to the use of gargoyles on churches…look evil to fool evil to make them pass over your house and go someplace else. Two Scripture passages come to mind- (Matthew 10:16) Be as wise as serpents but innocent as doves and also (1 Peter: 5) to be sober and alert, that the devil goes forth like a devouring lion looking to see whom he can devour. The thought also was that on this night, the curtain between this world and all things supernatural was ‘thin’ and so much so that otherworldly things could be seen and witnessed. That’s not a religious teaching, it’s just a surmised concept given that the next day was celebrating all things that are holy and in heaven.
The following day after All Saints’ Day is All Soul’s Day where Catholics would spend the day praying and honoring those they know and loved who had died. You might be familiar with ‘’Dios de los Muertos”, or “Day of the Dead” celebrations in Mexico and other South American countries (predominantly Catholic) where the graves of relatives are visited as the family prays for and remembers them. During All Soul’s Day, Catholics can go to Mass and pray for the souls of the deceased to help them if they are in purgatory (a limbo state where a soul wasn’t quite good enough for Heaven..also mentioned in Scripture: Matthew 5:26; ‘’Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.’’). So, this also added to the thought that those souls who were suffering in purgatory might make a visit on Hallow’een.
In more modern times, the night has been stretched to mean more heinous things and has been a night of mischief making as noted in this video.
Hope this helps.
I've been binge watching your Halloween content and I've found interesting and chilling and entertaining at the same time
My mother was born on Halloween 1920.
She passed in 2017 at 96.
the homemade costumes end up being some of the most scary things ever!
Your commentary at the end had me in tears laughing... “I don’t like it. I just don’t like it.”
Time to bring back the homemade leatherface costumes, I think!
Yeah that's a good one!
I loved this video! First one I have seen from you, I subscribed and gave you a thumbs up! You made me laugh! Also I have so many of those 1920s pics saved, it my favorite holiday and my favorite era for the holiday! Thanks! 👻🎃👻🧡🖤🧡
I don't know why the 1920's just seem a better time and place. I feel in love with the 1920's about ten years ago, collecting music and reading books and news paper. Thanks
Originally the whole point of the costumes & masks WAS supposed to be to scare off bad omens & such, but apparently it got out of hand. Growing up in the 60s in Michigan the night before Halloween was "Devil's Night" & that was notorious for vandalism, not so bad in the suburbs but in the cities of course it was worse. It always IS.
All the pranks sounds like what happens on cabbage night which is always October 30th. This use to be common place in the Midwest and the south. These costumes were generally made at home and in my opinion pretty awesome.
I think that thing with the mustache at 6:23 is Bob from Bob's Burgers.
Definetly puts what is often considered creepy now in another light. thanks for taking the time 1920.
Oh good it's a lighthearted Halloween video! *proceeds to watch the parade of nightmare fuel costumes from the 1920's*
When we think about a decade, we don't even think about the holidays. This video's much appreciated! Maybe more holiday videos should come around? Christmas in the 1920s, 4th of July in the 1920s, Valentine's Day?
With my near literary worship of HP Lovecraft, I'm terribly surprised it took me so long to find this channel.
Great video and Happy Halloween 🎃
Since an election is happening in the U.S. right now perhaps you could do a video talking about the U.S. presidential election of 1920, 1924 or 1928?
Something prophetic in mind? 🖤
So great! Your reactions to these horrifying old costumes was really entertaining.
My grandmother and mother were born in 1890 and 1920. This is how they described Hallowe'en in the 1920's and before.
Great commentary and funny too 🤣🤣. Amazing pics!
Very glad to have re-discovered your channel. Thank you for your time, effort and imagination in putting it all together.
This one is interesting especially from a British perspective as we didn't get into Halloween really until the 1970's - but that's probably because we were all so busy on November 5 with our Guy Fawkes night celebrations. Also you have a nice natural style of narration. I shall definitely be catching some more of your work, thank you.
I appreciate the kind words and thanks for the support!
Love it, thank you for doing this and thank you for all your videos...very enjoyable to watch!!!
Oh jeeze, I think the big heads are the scariest to me. Also, I think the kid in the top hat was playing Uncle Sam, due to the white hair and stars on his vest.
Great video …thanks Classic Vault.
This channel is my new obsession. Thank you 💜
That "baby head, budda" is actually a good luck spirit called a "Billican". Lots of little charms and brass penny banks were made in this image ,quite popular in the teens and 20's.
I was hoping you’d make a halloween video!! Your review of the costumes was hilarious 😂
Happy belated Halloween to all of you, i hope you had a lovely day!
I think the cat is Felix the cat from the early cartoons shown during a matinee for children back in the day. The creepy "baby" in the same photo was supposed to possibly represent a man from the Orient. The Oriental theme (furnishings, etc.) was in vogue around this era and so was Mahjong, and was a very popular game back then. Although not Halloween costume, per se, girls would dress up like Geisha girls and host Mahjong parties and have tea. In the other picture, the man appears to be dressed up like a Keystone cop. And the creepy clown, was possibly from one of Enrico Caruso's operas, where he'd dress up as a clown during his performance. However, I'm just guessing on all of this. I enjoyed your video. 🙂
The opera is Leoncavallo's " I Pagliacci". Caruso was very well-received in that role.
This (meaning, your commentary on the costumes) gave me an unexpected hearty laugh, thank you!
Great video as usual. Where can i find the intro music?
It's called "Oriental Fox Trot" (or sometimes just "Oriental") by Paul Whiteman
At 7:50: the black cat decoration on the wall in the background was very popular at the time. If you visit a See's Candies store, the entire store is art-deco, even the clerks' uniforms, because the company was founded back then. At Halloween time, they've used this cat on their packaging and in their window displays.
Sounds like some good 'ol fashioned holiday mischief to me!
I really love this channel. This kind of thing is why. Great stuff. Bob. G
if a lot of these costumes were home made it makes me wonder how they made the big headed masks
The man in the back at 9:00 not wearing a mask or much of a costume: "If this wasn't the Prohibition, and if this wasn't the only party I know with a stash of alcohol tonight, I wouldn't even be here."
Your commentary is killing me here😂😂😂😂😂😂
Sincerely, thank you for another wonderful video. I thoroughly enjoy them
at 1:28 thats Hilliary there on the left!
I'm pretty sure the "cat thing" was actually Mickey Mouse; he looked a lot different back in the 1920s, when he first came out, and was a common costume for Halloween back then.
Fall is my favourite time of year . I am sad it's over. There is trouble in Britain at Halloween in Britain too. Egging involves throwing stale eggs at people and property. Flour bagging is doing the same thing , but with bags of wheat flour.
Great channel thank you..remember they just used what they had for the costumes...you have one of the best channels on you tube I look forward to each video
Some suggestions for future videos: Great Literary Figures of the 20s (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, T.S. Eliot., Lovecraft, etc), Paris in the 20s, Berlin in the 20s, Futurism and Fascism in 20s Italy
Happy Halloween 👻
Your sense of humor had me chuckling. You're a funny guy.
The clown costume is like the Italian Harlequin character and the masks look like they were made of papier-mâché.
8:30 my money is on this guy being the Scarecrow in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Would love to go back in time in the 20s for a little while!! Would be interesting!!
Your commentary had me chuckling! Loved the old Halloween costumes. Scary and disturbing. The masks looked so uncomfortable. People had some wild imagination. Are they unskilled at mask making…or beyond talented? When the children wore the creepy bag masks were the most unsettling. Haha
I'd read that many towns in the early 20th century did not have Halloween as we know it. The young people dressed up as poor people and went door to door for treats. I've forgotten the backstory explaining why, but it turned out to be a more widespread practice than I'd thought., and in some areas it lasted for decades.
So laughing..... thanks for the chuckle
I love your channel and could easily watch it all day!!
I always loved the 1920's! And gangsters of that time! Maybe cover gangsters?
Halloween was completely different. In the 20's. Most people went to parties. While some used it for joking around. Home made costumes. Sounds nice.
The over-sized heads were common during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. That may be where the photo was from.
Halloween is my favorite holiday! this video was killer and the costumes are so freaky!
The guy with the stick could possibly be a zombified version of Beatrix Potter's Jeremy Fisher; it does look like a papier mache frog mask, and substituting the ubiquitous fishing road for a blunt stick would work in context. He's sitting cross legged as well, and the story was published in 1906.
@6:30 The duct-taped crazy face might be Charlie Chaplin, yes?
@6:40 "clowns to the left of me, jesters to the right, here i am, stuck in the middle with ghouls."
@7:27 "John Wayne Gacy: a family holiday album"
I think most of the masks back then were paper mâché. I remember reading about someone saying in an old book or magazine that they bought a paper mâché mask to wear for Halloween, and after awhile, while they wore it, it smelled like sour wet dog fur.
They look like paper mâché to me as well.
This was really good! So well researched, where do you go to get these articles in pictures?
I just did a variety of google searches and found a few sites that had compiled vintage costumes and newspaper articles about Halloween, then I chose only the ones that were from the 1920s.
Wikipedia
2561
Viewed this on Feb. 11th 2021. It was very interesting. But...yes that last photo was the most disturbing!! They look like creatures from a hellish nightmare, Ugh!!!
Wow great video but that's exactly what made costumes from back then so great,
Because they were actually creative, they were actually scary and horrifying and disturbing...
Not these cheap plastic things or the masks that we can just go down and get now, people actually had to put time and thought into these things back then
My mom and I are always talking about how we prefer the vintage costumes over anything
Great video
Hi, not the 20's but soon after.....Someone I knew was born in Ouray, Colorado 1923. He told me that one Halloween night, his brother and their friends from the neighborhood jumped into a pickup truck and went out to "Tip over outhouses". A man named Lazarus was waiting for them, hiding inside his outhouse, armed with a rifle. They tipped over his outhouse and ran toward the pickup when he chased them. The brother lost his grip on the back of the pickup as they drove too fast to get out of their. The brother fell into a "Flume", which was a long gulley that ran down the mountain to keep mud, rocks and melting snow from damaging property. Fortunately they rescued the brother and got home safe.
I love too learn about history 😌 😩 ☺ 💕
This is my favorite time of year too! Early Fall and Halloween. Halloween was originally a pagan holiday, and that shows through clearly in these old photos. It was supposed to scare you! I imagine trick or treating was invented by parents or others to stop the hooliganism, which could be dangerous and cruel especially when directed at the town "witch," or some other defenseless person. After WWII, it became the holiday we know today.
😄😄 Those rascals of the roaring 20‘s 😄😄🧙♀️🧛🏻🌚
Hey, is that guy all in black in the party scene at 9:40 being Count Orlok from Nosferatu?
Those ARE scary masks. I'm thinking, many of them are made from paper mache, which, I think, was used in the 1920s MUCH more than today
Happens in Nawlins, Trinidad every year, Rio...paper maché artisans everywhere there's a carnival
The costumes were fantastic!
Hey So I Was Wondering If You Could Make A Video About Thanksgiving Masking/Ragamuffin Day
Interesting. Liked and shared.
I would like to celebrate Halloween alla ol' creepy style like back then... It would be great to find a DIY vintage creepy paper maché mask tutorial!!!☠️👌👌🙆 It would be fun to do the masks and then wear them and see who looks the scariest 😆🤩🎉
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂..yeah some of the costumes were creepy..you are right..
The baby/Buddha thing at 6:14 is a Billiken. They were charm dolls popular then.
I love the costumes from the 20s. They are homemade but, they were also made to look scary and strange on purpose. Back then it was not like today with the sweet and pretty. And store bought mass produced.
These were individual and I love the way they are made to look spooky and scary.
I should add that even the kid costumes were made to be spooky as well.
I just like the creativity of the costumes from back then
I think the clown costume is based on a famous that was popular then.
These costumes slap!
Interesting that Halloween colors of black and orange were in place then.
And prior to that with symbolism in origins of the pagan holiday- orange for harvest & black for darkness
6:13 appears to be an amusement park deal, I've seen heads similar to that elsewhere.
everyone's in a Michael Myers nightmare costume
6:27 It's Ned Flanders
halloween in the 1920s seems darker, sexier, creepier lol
I liked this video very much yet I preferred the ones about the murderers
My grandfather and his four brothers were not happy with their elderly neighbors. Always telling my great grandparents that the boys did this or that! The boys decided they had enough of this old couple. The old couple had crocks of sauerkraut fermenting in their backyard. My grandfather and his brothers opened each crock and peed in them! 🤢 This occurred in 1910-1915.
Yeah the picture with the big heads is kind of scary but what’s even more creepy is the one kid not wearing a mask in front who doesn’t seem to have any emotional his face usually when you see Halloween pictures of kids they’re smiling but not this kid just a dead pan look . 😬
I think the scariest costumes were the ones that portrayed black people as inhuman monsters. I was reminded of how rife violence against the black community was in the 20s. The 20s were a pretty flashy and interested decade, but boy - they were also very DARK.
6:47 I wonder if they’re supposed to be Raggedy Ann and Andy.
Oh, yeahhh. Those collars and doll cheeks
This is both horrific and hilarious at the same time haha. Oh, and scariest one for me are the 2 women either side in the 2nd to last picture
What are you being for Halloween? The uncanny valley.
What is that @ 6:24? It looks a lot like 1920s comic-strip character Barney Google, who even had a popular song written about him (""Barney Google (with the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes)"). It could also be silent film comedian Ben Turpin.
In the time before plastic most masks were homemade.
Sounds more like Devil's Night.
Thanks for the awesome content ! 💚
Pre-LSD days? Many of the mask and costumes are "freeky-deaky" !😯💀💀💀