Postcards were all the rage in the early 20th century. In a time before cell phones and email, they were a quick way to communicate with friends and loved ones. Scribble a message on the back of a card, slap on a stamp, and mail that sucker. In addition to the written form, artwork, photographs, and designs made postcards visual treats. These images now give us a glimpse into the past, telling us what was popular and culturally significant in a given period. As a self-professed Halloweenie, I’m obsessed with vintage Halloween postcards. I’ve gathered a modest collection, ten of which we’ll examine to see how Halloween celebrations evolved over the years.
Halloween in Transition
Over 3,000 Halloween postcards were produced in the early 20th century, demonstrating the festival’s popularity. Irish and Scottish immigrants had just recently introduced the holiday to the United States in the mid-19th century. Old-world beliefs and traditions took on new American twists while others fell out of favor. Vintage Halloween postcards depict these transitions, giving us a window into how the holiday was celebrated in the past. Additionally, postcard imagery contributed to the creation of cultural icons we all recognize today, as they “worked to codify and solidify Halloween iconography.”1
Vintage Halloween Postcards: Divination and Fortune-Telling
Divination and fortune-telling were popular Halloween activities in Ireland and Scotland, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries. On the night of All Hallows’ Eve, the veil thins between the natural and spirit worlds, making it the perfect time to predict the future. Those desperate to know their fate called upon spirits for assistance in foreseeing what was to come.
We happen to know all about Scottish divination rituals thanks to Robert Burns’ 1785 poem, “Hallowe’en.” Unsurprisingly, young adults carried out most of these rituals with the intent of discovering who they’d marry. Not much has changed on that front, as I vividly recall playing the game MASH in the late 1990s and early 2000s, hoping my future husband was Leonardo DiCaprio. If MASH wasn’t your speed, perhaps you played the soda can game, where you pulled the tab back and forth while reciting the alphabet. When the tab finally popped off, the letter you were on was the initial of your one true love! Did anyone else play this, or was it just me?
Anyway, five of the postcards depict divination rituals originating in Scotland and Ireland, which eventually made their way to the United States. These old-world fortune-telling traditions appeared in American Halloween party books as fun games to entertain guests. You probably won’t recognize them, though, because they fell out of favor sometime in the 20th century.
The following are captions for the vintage Halloween postcards above, from left to right: 1. Hallowe’en (Nuts) by Ellen H. Clapsaddle, International Art Publ. Co., New York/Berlin, Printed in Germany; 2. May You See Your True Love’s Face; 3. Hallowe’en, 1914; 4. Hallowe’en Greetings by James Brundage, Printed in Germany; 5. Hallowe’en, 1908, International Art. Publ. Co., New York City.
Burn Your Nuts
A popular divination ritual was burning chestnuts or hazelnuts, which were abundant during the harvest. The ritual has a couple of variations, but the goal was to foresee a future spouse or if a relationship was endgame. The first is to throw several nuts into a fire and assign a name to each. The nut that burns brightest and longest is your true love.
The other ritual, portrayed in our postcard, involves two nuts representing a couple. Throw the nuts into the fire and see how they react. If one of them hisses and steams, the associated person is a real fucking problem. If both misbehave, you’re both toxic AF. When the nuts pop away from each other like the two labeled “despair,” expect a break-up. However, if they burn together, you’ve found your “happy ever after.”
Burns’ poem dedicates four stanzas to this ritual. Here’s one, explaining the gist:
The auld guidwife’s weel hoordet nits [nuts]
Are round an’ round divided;
And monie lads’ an’ lasses’ fates
Are there that night decided
Some kindle couthie, side by side,
An’ burn thegither trimly;
Some start awa’, wi’ saucy pride,
And jump out-owre the chimlie
Fu’ high that night.2
Americans were really into this divination ritual in the early 20th century. Almost every Halloween party book included it, with the following instructions:
These glowing nuts are emblems true
Of what in human life we view;
The ill-matched couple fret and fume,
And thus in strife themselves consume;
Or from each other wildly start,
And with a noise forever part.
But see the happy, happy pair,
Of genuine love and truth sincere;
With mutual fondness while they burn,
Still to each other kindly turn;
And as the vital sparks decay,
Together gently sink away;
Till life’s fierce trials being past,
Their mingled ashes rest at last.3
If you’re not sure the person you’re with is the one, try this ritual. But don’t blame me if you don’t get a good result!
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
Mirrors were another important Halloween divination tool. Several rituals were performed, all of which resulted in the identification of a future spouse. Burns includes the first ritual in his poem, where a young woman stands in front of a mirror on Halloween night. The face of her true love appears in the mirror after she eats an apple or slices it into pieces. Another ritual is almost the same but specifies the time as midnight and adds that the girl must also comb her hair.
Our postcard with the caption “May you see your true love’s face” depicts a similar ritual. The hour is midnight. The young woman is indoors with a candle in one hand and a mirror in the other. Upon citing the following incantation, she will see her true love’s face in the mirror.
Round and round, O stars so fair!
Ye travel and search out everywhere;
I pray you, sweet stars, now show to me
This night who my future husband shall be.4
The magic behind the face in the mirror goes back to the Celtic belief in the spirits of the living. The Irish called them “fetches,” and the Scottish named them “wraiths.” If a living person’s spirit appeared on Halloween, it was a good thing because it meant marriage.5
I would never do these rituals because I associate incantations and staring at mirrors in the dark with summoning the urban legend Bloody Mary. I was thoroughly convinced during my entire childhood that Bloody Mary was going to jump out of a mirror and kill me. So, that’s a hard pass for me on these rituals. But if any of you try them, let me know how it goes.
Mirror Prophecy Comes True
Apparently, it went well for one Madge Falconer in 1880s Scotland. A Harper’s New Monthly Magazine article titled “Hallowe’en: A Three-fold Chronicle” (1886) details the story. The author, William Sharp, recounts Madge’s tale of young love lost and true love found. When she was 14, she fell in love with her 17-year-old neighbor, Ralph. She couldn’t marry him because she was too young. No child brides in this story, thank the heavens. After he moved away to India, she pined for him for 7 years. She decided to try the mirror divination ritual on Halloween night before her 21st birthday. To her dismay, she saw some older dude with a scar instead of Ralph.
She eventually moved to India and finally met up with Ralph. After dating, Madge decided he sucked, and they broke up. Girls be fickle like that sometimes. She soon met Major Colville, an older man with a badass battle scar. He was obviously the dude Madge saw in the mirror, so they married and lived happily ever after. Hooray!6
Bobbing for Apples
Apples, abundant in autumn, were another tool for predicting the future. Bobbing for apples on All Hallows’ Eve goes way back in Britain, at least 400 years back. By the 19th century, however, it fell out of fashion and seems to have been confined to Ireland and Scotland.
As with the other rituals, there were variations on bobbing for apples. The main version was to fill two tubs with water and apples. One tub had girls’ names carved, adhered, or inserted into the apples. The other tub had apples with boys’ names. With their hands tied behind their backs, participants tried to retrieve an apple with their teeth. The name on the apple prophesied their future spouse. Our postcard shows this variation, as there are only girls surrounding the tub of apples. In another game, everyone bobbed for apples at the same time, and the first to retrieve one would be the first to marry.
Yet another variation was snap-apple, which involved a suspended stick with an apple on one end and a lit candle on the other. Spin the stick and try to get the apple. I can imagine a lot of singed eyebrows and mouths full of hot wax in this game. No, thank you.
Apple Paring
Our other postcard involves yet another apple ritual to discover true love. It involves paring the skin of an apple and flinging it over your left shoulder as you recite this incantation:
I pare this pippin round and round again,
My sweetheart’s name to flourish on the plain;
I fling the unbroken paring o’er my head,
My sweetheart’s letter on the ground is read.7
The apple paring will then reveal the initial of your future spouse. I guess you’re shit out of luck if your true love’s name starts with a f, t, or y…
Pick a Card, Any Card
Our last card is the cute little fortune-teller with a deck of cards. I haven’t found evidence of a Celtic tradition of divination with playing cards, so it would appear this is an American invention. There is a brief mention of cards in a 1870 American ladies’ magazine, which describes an “English” Halloween celebration involving divination by laying out cards, among other methods.8 The author doesn’t specify what kind of cards, and also erroneously calls the holiday English, so we can’t rely on this source too much.
Fortune-telling with cards, however, was an established tradition in the United States at the turn of the 20th century. A New York Times article from 1903 describes this type of fortune-telling as a fun winter activity for a “sharp-witted” girl. The author includes displays of card spreads and notes that professional fortune tellers have special decks with elaborate designs, but any set will do for a weekend party.9
American Halloween publications include sections on fortune-telling, including card systems. The most popular method, however, was writing fortunes on white paper with milk and burning them in walnut shells. The burning process browned the milk, revealing written fortunes.
Vintage Halloween Postcards: Cultural Icons
The five remaining postcards depict images we all recognize as modern Halloween icons: the witch, the black cat, ghosts, jack-o’-lanterns, owls, and crows. But where did these symbols come from, and how did they become associated with Halloween?
The following are captions for the vintage Halloween postcards above, from left to right: 1. Hallowe’en Greeting, 1921, Whitney, Worcester, Massachusetts; 2. Hist! and Hark!, 1922, Whitney Made, Worcester, Massachusetts; 3. Hallowe’en, 1910, Raphael Tuck & Sons, Art Publishers to their Majesties the King and Queen, Printed in Saxony; 4. You Auto Have a Happy Hallowe’en, Collins Malto Bread, 1908, International Art Publishing Co., New York/Berlin; 5. A Hallowe’en Warning, Made in the USA.
Witches and Black Cats
Let’s start with the lovely witch depicted in our 1910 postcard. She’s a refreshing departure from the gnarly old hags we’re used to seeing. Instead, she’s young and vibrant, with rosy cheeks and red lips. She’s a new breed of witch who became popular alongside sexier pin-up ladies on broomsticks with legs on display and cleavage galore. Even though these witches have gotten facelifts, we still see wizened old birds in Halloween imagery during this period.
Witches were a staple of Halloween iconography in the early 20th century. In 1919, Ruth Edna Kelley wrote a history of the holiday and noted witches were a central element, representing “magic and prophecy.” Halloween was a night for witches, as evidenced by this recitation in a party book from 1900:
*To be recited by a girl who dressed like an old witch, with a shrill voice:
It is the night of the year
That we have good cheer
We race on broomsticks through the air
And witches’ celebrations share.10
Witches have been associated with Halloween for centuries. Witch hunts raged across Europe and America in the 15th to 17th centuries. Accusations of witches consorting with the devil on All Hallows’ Eve were thrown around left and right. Since many of the accused were older women, the image of a scary, wrinkly witch with her broomstick, cauldron, and black cat (all domestic symbols) became the norm. Our postcard’s cute little witch may not have wrinkles or a broomstick, but she has her faithful familiar, the black cat.
Jack-o’-lanterns
Jack-o’-lanterns originate from the Irish folktale of Stingy Jack, a man doomed to roam the earth with a lantern made of a turnip and ember from hell. Irish and Scottish children recreated Jack’s lantern using turnips during Halloween celebrations, resulting in the original jack-o’-lantern. These things were terrifying. When Halloween came to America, turnips were swapped for pumpkins, creating the iconic symbol we all know today. If you want to learn more and see a photo of a creepy turnip lantern, check out the post The Origins of the Jack-o’-lantern.
Vintage Halloween postcards helped codify the pumpkin as the holiday’s king. Several of our postcards depict jack-o’-lanterns, but two in particular are interesting. Our Hist and Hark! and You Auto Have a Happy Hallowe’en postcards both have anthropomorphized jack-o’-lanterns. WTF does anthropomorphized mean? Basically, it’s giving human traits to things that aren’t human. In this case, there’s a little girl with a pumpkin head surrounded by animals and a man with a pumpkin head driving a car. A little creepy and off-putting? Yes. Iconic? Hell yes.
Ghosts
Ghosts have always been an integral component of Halloween. Tradition tells us October 31st is the night the veil lifts between worlds and spirits cross over to join the living. In 1903, Stanley Schell described Halloween: “Of all nights of the year this is the one upon which supernatural influences most prevail. The spirits of the dead wander abroad, together with witches, devils, and mischief-making elves, and in some cases, the spirits of living persons have the temporary power to leave their bodies and join the ghostly crew.”11
Our Hallowe’en Greeting postcard portrays a couple of members of the ghostly crew. If you look carefully, you’ll see two ghostly faces emerge from the candle’s smoke. Ghosts also made appearances at Halloween parties in the late 19th century. In her 1898 party book, Martha Russell Orne encourages hosts to dress up as ghosts. She instructs readers to wear a sheet and greet guests by saying: “This is where I died seven years ago. These groans proceed from my ancestors, who cannot rest in their graves because I have returned to earth to spend Hallowe’en!12 LOL. Love it.
Crows and Owls
Two of our postcards depict black birds, which are probably crows. Their association with Halloween likely stems from the fact that they’re symbols of death. Not only are a group of crows called a murder, but they also eat almost anything, including dead carcasses. Their flocks, numbering in the thousands, have been considered bad omens throughout history. They’re super smart and have amazing memory, which proves troublesome for humans who piss them off. They’ll remember if you wrong them and they will fuck you up.13 Since crows are all black, they’re often confused with ravens. Ravens are also associated with horror and death, all thanks to Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 poem, “The Raven.”
An owl appears on our postcard with the pumpkin-headed girl, as well as the young fortune-teller. They weren’t associated with Halloween in England, Ireland, or Scotland, so they’re also likely newcomers to the holiday’s iconography. Owls are nocturnal predators with an terrifying screech. Seriously, listen to this barn owl.
According to historian Lesley Pratt Bannatyne, folks in the Middle Ages thought owls were bad spirits who ate the souls of the dying. They believed an owl’s cry was a sign of impending death.14 Yeah, I believe it.
Stanley Schell gives us some insight into why owls became associated with Halloween when he included owls in his list of “grewsome things” to use as party decorations in 1903.15
What Vintage Halloween Postcards Tell Us
As Halloween became popular in America at the turn of the 20th century, celebrations incorporated traditional beliefs, practices, and symbols. Halloween party books list witches, black cats, owls, ghosts, and jack-o’-lanterns as essential décor. Drills, dialogues, and plays were a staple for children’s parties and required participants to dress as witches, ghosts, and jack-o’-lanterns. The song “Hallowe’en is Lots of Fun” from 1900 provides us with direct evidence of these symbols’ importance in Halloween festivities. Sung to the tune of Old MacDonald, the first verse is about the jack-o’-lantern, the second is about a cat, the third features a bat, the fourth sings about a ghost, and the fifth focuses on a witch.16 Vintage Halloween postcards depicted these holiday symbols en masse and codified them as quintessential Halloween imagery.
While Halloween parties also featured divination games and fortune-telling, these traditions disappeared over the years. They are forever captured in vintage Halloween postcards, allowing us to glimpse into past practices. I don’t know about you, but next time I throw a party on All Hallows’ Eve, I’m going to bring back some of these rituals.
If you’re interested in the history of Halloween and jack-o’-lanterns, check out the posts: The Origins of Halloween and The Origins of the Jack-o’-lantern.
