Once again, the yearly festival of trick-or-treating, candy, pumpkin-carving and sexy animal costumes is upon us. Halloween, or All Hallows' Eve, (a traditional festival with pagan roots), took on its modern American form within the nation's immigrant communities in the late 19th century. Before cartoonish Spidermans, bumblebees and Richard Nixon's made Halloween cute and/or ridiculous, these photos harken back to earlier days of the holiday, from a California migrant camp in the 1930s to girls dressed as hobos in 1908.
Halloween in High Point, Seattle, 1943.
Children sport Halloween costumes at a housing project Halloween Party in West Seattle. Extra points for the woman in the center back of the photo by the door. Super creepy.
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University of Washington
Trick-or-treating in Denmark, 1930s.
Someone please base a horror movie on this terrifying photograph of Danish children in masks.
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(Wikimedia Commons)
Pumpkin-carving, 1938
Mrs. Henry A. Wallace, wife of the Secretary of Agriculture, helps Girl Scout Ridgely Chapline carve her pumpkin in Washington, D.C.
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(Library of Congress)
Halloween party, 1920s
Three children pose with a woman at what the Library of Congress calls the "Gates' Rooftop Garden," sometime between 1920 and 1930.
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(Library of Congress)
Halloween party at a California migrant camp, 1938.
Iconic photographer Dorothea Lange snapped this photo of children attending a Halloween party at Shafter migrant camp in Kern County, California. We're not sure if it's the flash making the children look terrified, or something menacing out-of-frame.
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(Library of Congress)
Halloween at State Normal School in Kearney, Nebraska, 1908
Judging by makeshift tent, the flask and the handwritten sign, we're pretty sure these women are posing as old-school hobos. Note the black cat on the wall and pumpkins on the mantle. Some things never change.
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(Library of Congress)
Halloween costume contest, Osage Farms, Missouri, 1939
Arthur Rothstein snapped this photo of the winner of a "masquerade" at Hillview cooperative in 1939 Missouri.
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(Library of Congress)
Halloween party, New Orleans, 1941
Children at a WPA pre-school in New Orleans celebrate Halloween with lanterns and lollipops.
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(WPA/Wikimedia Commons)
Trick-or treating, northern Nevada, 1979-10
Three boys stuff apples and orange cakes into their trick-or-treating bags. No word on how angry this made them.
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(Library of Congress)
Bags-on-heads, 1911
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(Credit: http://boingboing.net/2008/10/06/old-timey-halloween.html)
Halloween costumes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, early 20th century
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(Credit: http://anonymousworks.blogspot.com)
