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Photos: Halloween costumes of the early 20th century

12:25 PM Wed, Oct 29, 2008 |
By Sheila Lennon    Email this author |   Email this entry

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Halloween in the Time of Cholera is a set of old Halloween photos -- many from nearly a century ago -- that vintage photo collector Steven Martin is uploading to Flickr, one each day throughout October.

Halloween was very different before store-bought costumes. You might find some inspiration here for the sort of truly spooky getup that might actually scare me when I open my door Friday night. (Store-bought usually doesn't do that, but the mosquito on a bicycle above could do it.)

I've linked above to the first page of the set, but don't miss the second page either, where you'll find more period ideas, such as


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The Wired photo staff cropped 12 of Martin's images into closeups, and uses quotes from an email interview with Martin as its captions. From the first:

"My theme is 'Halloween in the Time of Cholera,'" collector Steven Martin told Wired.com in an e-mail interview. "The idea being that people back then were probably on a more intimate level with death -- and that would have affected the way they celebrated Halloween."

Martin, who has amassed a vast collection of vintage images through eBay, said he's using pictures from 1940 and earlier for the Flickr countdown.

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1 Comments

Mary said:

These are great...interesting on a number of levels.

They are fun to look at, too, since it's harder to find Halloween post cards.

Link | October 29, 2008 8:17 PM
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