It seems to me that much of the most highly collected Halloween items of the past could be classed as ephemera because it was designed to be used and then thrown away. Or it was made of materials that deteriorated quickly and were discarded after a few years of reuse.
Halloween, as a commonly celebrated US event, truly came into its own in the very early 1920s. Parties then were primarily for adults, with guests settling in to play mahjong, bridge or other games. Tables and walls would be decorated with a wide array of Halloween-themed items, really setting the party’s mood. The games’ winners would be given prizes to take home, like candy containers, lanterns or noisemakers. Only later did “trick or treating” come into vogue, with the holiday becoming more oriented toward children.
The imagery of vintage Halloween items through the 1940s is very memorable. The pumpkin, or its more humanized incarnation, the Jack-O-Lantern, is the most common image. Next most common are black cats, skeletons and owls. Mor rare are witches, veggie people and bats, with the rarest being devils. This means that within any given genre, devil imagery is the rarest to find.
The imagery of the older Halloween pieces is significantly different than imagery common from the 1950s through today. The imagery was meant to provoke a reaction – generally a horrific one! The pieces were, in many instances, meant to scare. More recent Halloween imagery is,in comparison, pedestrian, cute and dull. Since Halloween items are notoriously hard to accurately date, one rule of thumb used is this: the scarier the imagery, the older the item!
Source: http://www.halloweencollector.com/history/
When I listed a postcard this week showing the Theodore Roosevelt Arch, I wondered why I hadn’t ever seen this structure pictured before. So,I googled it and came up with a fascinating story.
Yellowstone,Theodore Roosevelt Arch
The arch was built early in the National Park’s history. The cornerstone was laid in April, 1903. And Theodore Roosevelt was present at the ceremony for laying the cornerstone. More on that later. But first, one might ask why such an imposing structure would be built at the
North Entrance of the park, a less used entry point today. But at the time that it was built, it was the closest entrance to a railroad line. In 1903, the railroad ended at Cinnabar, Montana. The Northern Pacific Railway was persuaded to extend the railroad line much closer to the park entrance to Gardiner, Montana where a stone railroad depot was constructed at the same time as was the arch. In the spring of 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt embarked on a massive tour of the West via railroad car. He spent a fortnight in Yellowstone Park as a vacation. At Cinnabar, President Roosevelt debarked from the train and was met by the Superintendent of the Park and Commanding Officer of Fort Yellowstone. The presidential party left on horseback for two weeks of camping and viewing the sights. At the end of this time, President Roosevelt returned to the site of the park entrance and partcipated in the laying the cornerstone. The Masonic Order conducted rituals and President Roosevelt addressed the crowd, giving a talk about wilderness,democracy and the promise of the West.
Although the automobile was not allowed to enter the park until 1915, the building of roads,great lodges and other amenities that marked the gradual decline in use of the north entrance. Today, one must detour to view the arch and the depot that was constructed at the same time no longer stands. Most visitors enter from the south of the park.
Yellowstone,Old Faithful Geyser
I’ve been listing some postcards of Yellowstone National Park over the past couple of days and began to wonder who Frank Haynes, the photographer and/or distributor of many of the earlier postcards was. According to
Front Range Living, photographer Frank Jay Haynes set out to photograph the West in 1898 and took many photographs in America’s first national park. His family owned the concession at Yellowstone until 1963, when his son died. For the better part of a century, Haynes and his family photographed and sold postcards that chronicled Yellowstone. Most of the postcards that I’ve seen focus on the national wonders of the park. However, early postcards also captured the people who journeyed to see Old Faithful, who danced and dined in one of the lodges, where conveyed by horse and buggy to see the sights, set off in Model T cars on dusty roads and fed bears by hand.
Yellowstone,Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces
Over time, the pastimes of the visitors changed from singing campsongs around a campfire to today’s self guided walks and hikes. The formations themselves have changed over time as well. Even Old Faithful is on a slightly longer schedule than in previous years. In recent years, a massive forest fire changed the look of the park. Although, in time this devastation will grow back, the park is ever evolving, and it is fascinating to peek back in time to see what the park looked like in the past.
