Halloween card

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An early 1900s Halloween post card depicting a woman dressed as a witch with a Jack-o'-lantern, captioned as "Hallowe'en Greetings"

A Halloween card is a

home telephone, Halloween cards occupied a role similar to Christmas cards and birthday cards. Today, many cards from the popular designers of the period are sought after as memorabilia
.

History

Early 20th century coon card featuring racist caricatures of black children

An early reference to a Halloween card is made in volume 4 of Ingall's Home and Art Magazine published in 1891, in which a sample design is depicted in the article Domestic Helps for the Home by Laura Willis Lathrop.[1] Early Halloween cards typically depicted the same themes as Easter cards and Christmas cards, as publishers reused images for various holidays, with the caption signifying the specific holiday.[2] From about 1900 to 1915, the United States experienced a Halloween "postcard craze" that continued the commercialization of the holiday that began in the 1800s.[3] By 1909, the Souvenir Post Card Company of New York City produced 12 Halloween card designs.[4][a]

The popularity of Halloween cards rivaled that of Christmas cards until about 1930, by which time telephones were common household items and began supplanting the use of greeting cards.[5] Halloween-themed postal cards were sold in post offices and by private printers with displays in general stores.[6] Their popularity and the holiday's commercial success was "ultimately determined" by women, particularly those in the middle class.[6]

Of the over 3,000 cards produced in the United States during this period, many depicted themes common to the modern tradition, including

witches, pumpkins, and goblins.[5] Other Halloween postcard themes included fortune-telling[5] and romance or courtship.[7] Designs also reflected the racism in the United States of the era: of the postcards produced by the Rust Craft Greeting Card Company from 1927 to 1959 catalogued by Wendy Morris, twelve categories of ethnic imagery were identified.[8] The most common theme being black children, appearing on 42% of cards depicting an ethnic or racial difference from the white majority.[8]

Designers

A 1904 postcard designed by Ellen Clapsaddle

Well-known early postcard printers include Winsch and Raphael Tuck & Sons.[5] Both printers employed artists whose postcard designs are collectables sought by Halloween memorabilia collectors.[5] Winsch works by Samuel Schmucker (described as "small masterpieces of art nouveau" by Lisa Morton in her book The Halloween Encyclopedia) and Jason Freixas are highly prized.[5] Among the artists employed by Tuck were Francis Brundage, and the "queen of postcard artists", Ellen Clapsaddle.[5]

Notes

  1. Decoration Day.[4]

References

  1. ^ Lathrop 1891, p. 501.
  2. ^ Shank 2004, p. 171.
  3. ^ Williams 2017, p. 13.
  4. ^ a b Shank 2004, p. 128.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Morton 2003, p. 154.
  6. ^ a b Williams 2017, p. 33.
  7. ^ Andrews 2012, p. 106.
  8. ^ a b Shank 2004, p. 185.

Sources

  • Andrews, Barbara (2012). Postcard Collector. Krause Publications.
    ISBN 9781440234989
    .
  • Lathrop, Laura Willis (1891). "Domestic Helps for the Home". Ingall's Home and Art Magazine. Vol. 4. J.F. Ingalls.
  • Morton, Lisa (2003). The Halloween Encyclopedia. McFarland & Company.
    ISBN 978-0-7864-6074-8
    .
  • Shank, Barry (2004). A token of my affection: greeting cards and American business culture.
    ISBN 0231118791
    .
  • Williams, Rebecca J. (2 May 2017). Weird old figures and a new twist: Cultural functions of Halloween at the turn of the 20th century (Thesis). Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
    hdl:10919/78010
    .

External links
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