- Do you like my little
Halloween setup? (chuckles) I've accumulated a
collection of little guys. And I finally acquired my lifelong dream, peanut butter and jelly Tutter. - I am a mouse! Tutter the mouse! (exclaims) - He's going to be a permanent fixture in every single one of my
videos, so get used to him. So people have been celebrating
Halloween as a fun holiday for hundreds of years now. But what did Halloween
parties used to look like? What sort of traditions did they have? What foods did they make? What did they wear? I want to take us on a
journey back in time today to mostly the 1910s and 20s in the US to catch a glimpse of what
a Halloween party back then would have been like. And just for fun, let's try out a few
things while we're at it. "Dennison's Bogie Book: Suggestions for Halloween
Parties" wrote in 1917, the essentials for a
successful Halloween party are a number of jelly young
people brought together, an air of mystery pervading
the gathering space, some good things to eat and a leader who knows the
time-honored games of fate. It would not be Halloween if we did not pull the
telltale plant of kale, look over our shoulder into a mirror for the faces of our sweethearts and listen breathlessly
to our fortunes being told by some beguiling witch. That quote honestly sums it up. People used to approach the
entire concept of Halloween very differently from how we do today. Today, it's like, how
scary and gory can we get? How can we continue to push
the boundaries of our fears? But in the early 1900s, Halloween borrowed much more from the late Victorian
ideas of the holiday. It focused a lot more
on whimsy, spookiness, harvest time and nature, and
of course, fortune-telling. Halloween decorations were
less commonly mass produced, so it was more encouraged for people to not only make costumes from hand, but to also handcraft
all of their decorations, usually taking advantage of materials that you could find outdoors
or in your own home. I live in LA, so finding autumnal decor outside is definitely not an option unless I want to go drag
some palm fronds indoors, or a cactus, or roadkill. But I did manage to find some
vintage style decor anyways. For guidance on how a
Halloween party should be run, party organizers and hostesses
would have referenced any number of extremely popular common household magazines at the time Godey's Lady's Book, Ladies' Home Journal, Harper's Bazaar, The Delineator, Woman's Home Companion, Vogue, Time, The Modern Priscilla, or the party planning
publications, the Bogie Books. These books gave tips
and guides on everything, from decorations, food, and invitations to costumes, etiquette and games. So you want to throw a Halloween
party in the early 1900s. Your first step would probably be to send out invite
postcards to your guests. These postcards didn't change
much in style or format since the Victorian era, they often featured whimsical
illustrations and a poem. Vegetable people were
clearly a fan favorite for holiday postcards in general, because there's a lot of these and they are bewildering. The 1912 Bogie Book warned, the invitations should contain
as much secrecy and excite as great curiosity as possible. Everyone loves mystery, and the Halloween party
shrouded from the beginning will be the most successful. This suggestion from the
1914 Pictorial Review is one of my favorites. Decorate the invitations
with queer little imps, stenciled in gay colors on
white paper or cardboard. Enclose within each invitation a red maple leaf and the yellow one. These are cut from paper
and require no pattern. Save that which may be made by tracing around a real maple leaf. On each leaf, print the name of the person to whom the invitation
goes with these directions. We here with make sincere request that you will deem to be our guest. On Halloween at hour of 8, pray don't be formal, don't be late. As the autumn breezes gaily blow, let the maple imps your fortune show. If you cannot come which
would give us grief, please return to us the yellow leaf. But if you can come, much joy you'll shed, by sending us promptly
the leaf that's red. Yeah! If I get a card in the mail
covered in queer little imps, stenciled in gay colors, I will be returning the red leaf and absolutely fucking
it up at that party. Here's another fun one. You are commanded to attend
our Halloween festivities, whereat you will be expected
to exert yourself at utmost to promote ghostly interests. Baby, I promote ghostly
interests every day when I wake up and instantly feel another one of my internal
organs shutting down. This is not gonna be an issue. I don't know what the
kids are doing these days, but I distinctly remember
a very similar thing to these postcards happening when I was a kid living in Texas. Like, sometimes anonymous
people would drop off a goodie bag on your doorstep, which contained a spooky poem about how you had to now pass
along the poem to someone else with a goodie bag or you'll be cursed. Was this unique to where
I lived? I don't know. Tell me in the comments, if you two were attacked by threatening Halloween goodie bags. Okay, I only just remembered
this as I was editing. They're called Boo Bags. And no, they're not
unique to my experience, they're extremely common. (chuckles) I don't know, this buried memory just
emerged out of nowhere. Thank you. They're called Boo Bags. So after you've got your RSVP list set, it's time to decorate. And as I said earlier, most decor was handmade or
brought in from outside. People got really creative, though. Like this prank from 1907 where a weighted papier-mache
snake drops down on guests as they walk in. It was common for people to transform their laundry
rooms, for instance, into a fun setting, like
this pirates den from 1922. Overall, holding the party
in a barn if you had one was the most popular. Of course, you had the classics
in the way of decorations, using crepe paper. - Creepy paper. - [Man] It's crepe paper. - Carving jack-o'-lanterns,
utilizing candles, dressed up dummies and scarecrows, streamers and papier-mache
sculpted skeletons. But many of these hostess articles also encouraged using nature, scattering leaves around
or utilizing dead branches. Using autumn harvest
produces as centerpieces, setting up cornstalks, generally hanging out in barns, lots and lots of pumpkins. And obviously, you got
to have party favors. Popcorn balls, lollipops, noisemakers, and little handmade crafts all placed in very creative packaging. I imagine it probably got competitive to see who could make the
most memorable party favors. After all, they were often at least partially some type of thing that could be saved as a
souvenir in a scrapbook. Arguably, the most important
part of these parties was fortune-telling
games and superstitions, which were branched off from old Irish, Scottish and English folk
traditions and beliefs. Unsurprisingly, these fortune-telling games were usually about trying to
foresee your future lover. In part because these Halloween parties were a rare opportunity for young people to flirt with each other in a proper setting. There were usually
chaperones and odds are, you and the other people
attending the party were in the same social circle, not to mention, (sighs) class. While social expectations
between men and women were loosening up considerably by the 10s, it was still a decade
clinging to the remnants of the Victorian etiquette rules. Etiquette manuals, like we discussed in my
video about sexy ankles, were still very much a staple for women of middle and upper-class households. And they had a lot to say
about how to act at a party. Don't let any man touch the
tip of your little finger until he has the right. You'll be glad you didn't
when the right man appears. If that one's an innuendo or dead serious, I literally can't tell. But fortune-telling was also
done in the form of games, much in the same way that
people in more recent years use Ouija boards or play Bloody Mary. One game that was a good way for people to flirt with each other under
the guise of fortune-telling was apple paring. Harper's Bazaar described in 1907, there was much merriment
over the whirling stick. Upon one end of this
and apple was impaled, upon the other stood an ignited candle. A string was attached near the apple and the stick suspended from the ceiling, balanced so that it hung horizontally. It was then set whirling and players, hands still bound behind, were given a few minutes to try and try for a buy out of
the apple's fat cheek. Around and around whirled the stick, so rapidly that the candle
flame brushed noses and chins in the sauciest manner. The love divination aspect of
the game was cemented later, as evidenced by poems like
these from the 20s and 30s. Pare an apple, take the skin, and fling it straight behind you; whatever letter it may frame, that will begin your true love's name, and they will surely find you. With the sharp knife, pare an apple, round and round and round. Toss the paring o'er your shoulder, the initial found will be
of the one you'll marry. Do not be afraid. 'Tis an old prophetic
omen, good for man or maid. Another apple based game was snap apple, where apples were suspended by strings from the ceiling or a doorframe and people competed to see
who could bite one first with their hands tied behind their backs. The one who wins would
be the first to marry. The fixation on apples here is related to the long
history of symbolism where apples represent love and fertility. As the 1908 edition of the
Mothers' Magazine said, Halloween shows us the sunny
side of the superstitious life and its present observance
tells what it was 50 years ago, for we hold to the
shadows of what was real to the people then. It was in some way
associated in the olden time with the love interest of the young, it seems to have been
a sweetheart festival more than anything else. All the traditional experiments
were made to find out which two young people
belong to each other. But like, don't get it twisted. Usually people were not taking
the fortune-telling stuff very seriously. In fact, a lot of magazines from the time complained about how no intelligent person truly believes in fortune-telling. I, on the other hand,
take it very seriously. So let's try out some old
timey fortune-telling games. First game is from Today's
magazine of October 15th, 1910. It reads: another way
of learning one's fate is by the test of the three saucers. One of which contains milk and one water, the other being left empty. These are placed on a table and the persons trying
their fate are blindfolded. If they dip their fingers in the milk, they will achieve wealth. And if in the water, only a comfortable
competency will be theirs. And if into the empty
saucer, poverty awaits them. So of course I set up the milk, the water and the empty saucer, and I blindfolded myself, had a very hard time finding the dish, but ended up touching the oat milk dish. So I guess that means
that wealth awaits me, which is really convenient because I found $2 in my butt pocket approximately five minutes after this. The next game is from
"Hallowe'en Fun" of 1927. It reads: a young lady is given
a dozen kernels of popcorn in a wire popper. These are to be popped over the coals. The number of kernels remaining unpopped foretell the number of years
before she is to marry. Well, I don't have any loose popcorn, but I do have a bag of popcorn. So I let that pop and then counted out how
many kernels were left. Four kernels. So, if any ladies want to send
me a girlfriend application, I guess you better get in soon, because four years is the time limit. Yeah, yeah, so we figured out
our fortunes, that's nice, but what about the food? So bad news, it's not great, but first the table settings. Probably the most famous Halloween
table element of this era is the Jack Horner pie, named after the little
Jack Horner nursery rhyme, which is not only not usually a pie but not even the same
thing across the board. It's more like a category. It was basically a centerpiece where you had to be visually creative and craft a Halloween themed container that is hiding little treasures or prizes attached to strings leading
to each place at the table, and each guest can pull the
strings to claim a prize. Following the fortune-telling games, you also had fortune-telling food, like walnuts that contained fortunes. The fortune said things like, for fame and fortune you'll have fight. Don't lose courage, 'twill end all right. Aw. Or, you are fickle and 'tis said, you'll often love but never wed. Oh. We have to talk about the food now. Some of it isn't that bad. You've got, you know, ice
fruit juice, fruit salad. If your party's more of a sit-down affair, you might even have a whole menu. But usually, the more casual
affair was weird sandwiches. And by weird, I mean completely
normal for this time period. For example, you've got
chopped ham with currant jelly, cream cheese with guava jelly and pecans, olive with Mayo and caviar, Neufchatel cheese mixed with
salad dressing and olives, raisins and marmalade. Yeah, okay. Moving on. The side dishes and sweets
were usually better off, except for the recipe for literally just burnt
almonds for dessert in the 1907 Pictorial Review. But it wasn't all bad. Honestly, a lot of the full
menus these magazines suggested were not bad. If you put little tea sandwiches and orange sherbet in front of me, like the 1915 Bogie's Book suggests, I'm not gonna complain at you. Even better, some menus got creative and came up with Halloweeny
names for regular foods. Like this menu for midnight
supper for grownups in the 1926 Needlecraft
magazine, that lists, witches' broth and magic wands, which are literally just
soup and breadsticks. I just think that's cute,
and I'm gonna start using it. The Women's Magazine wrote in 1914, the Elve's Salad is apple,
nut and celery salad served in bright red apple shells. Broom Straws are cheese straws, and Goblins' Food consists
of brown bread sandwiches with a filling of cream
cheese and chopped olives. God, these people love olives. Black Cat Cream is vanilla ice
cream with chopped raisins, nuts, and bits of ginger mixed through it. Witches' Brew is cider and
Lucky Cakes are plain cookies, while Mystic Sweets are
green and white candies. But of course, you've
got to arrive in costume. The 10s and 20 saw some
really fun costume ideas and some not so fun ones. I was gonna make this one from the 1922 Bogie's Book for this video, but (sighs) life happened. Sorry, just pretend that I have it on. In 1925, the Bogie Book wrote: gay costumes are part of
every Halloween party. So true. Typically, people would make
their own costumes at home by sewing it or following
one of many guides to crafting a costume out of crepe paper. - Creepy paper. - It's crepe paper, master. - And some people really got into it, like this story from
the housekeeper in 1912. I observed that some of the other guests had ideas as to costumes. For instance, one rather short spirit had drawn her pillowcase into
two years on top of her head, and painted on her mask
a piece of white muslin, with holes cut in it for eyes and mouth, a full set of whiskers. Occasionally, she
admitted a plaintive meow, varied by hisses, while she
worked her hands like claws. Another wore two masks, one
in front and one behind, and it was very difficult to determine whether he was coming or going. As always, Halloween afforded
people a rare opportunity to act like children again. And that one thing has never changed, though so many other facets of the way that we celebrate
Halloween absolutely have. Maybe the Mothers' Magazine
sums it all up best. May we never grow out
of some of the feelings that have made Halloween. Life is prosaic enough without stripping more of
its pleasant fancies away or stealing in slaying it's laughter. If only we can draw the
borderline sharp and clear and keep on the right side, it will be well to honor all festivals; but pleasure and fair, clean and converse, merriment and chase behavior are possible and desirable contributions. Keeping them we can keep Halloween with light and honest hearts. So, wash thy hands, wear thy masks, and go try some old
timey Halloween recipes, as long as it's not burnt almonds. (upbeat eerie music)
