As the festival began to emerge in its modern guise thanks, in part, to an influx of immigrants from the British Isles to the United States, picture postcards entered their so-called “golden era”.
Rarely seen or used in the US before 1893, an estimated 900 million postcards had been mailed two decades later. And quite a few of these were Halloween themed. Historian Lisa Morton reckons that around 3,000 unique designs for spooky cards were created in the golden era alone, cards which helped popularize the celebration and standardize its imagery.
Viewing them today, much of the iconography is familiar - black cats, jack-o’-lanterns, witches’ brooms - but many of the games and rituals have fallen out of favor: scrying, ducking or bobbing for apples, pranks involving cows.
Here's a handful of the postcards for you to enjoy...
