VINTAGE HALLOWEEN CARDS

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In the early 1900s, hundreds of beautiful Halloween postcards were produced by various companies.  Eerie, bizarre, and often humorous, the cards are a neat look at the beginning of 20th century culture, and how America embraced Halloween before it became over commercialized with cartoon characters and insane amounts of candy.  I'm working on The retroCRUSH BIG BOOK OF HALLOWEEN and hope to feature a ton of these throughout, but here's a big batch of them to tide you over in the meantime, sorted into FIVE GIANT PAGES of special categories for your viewing pleasure.

BOBBING 4 APPLES

If these cards are any indication, Bobbing for Apples was mighty popular.  Though the exact origin of this custom is unknown, it has outlived less popular variants of the game like Bobbing for Jicama, Bobbing for Cactus, and Bobbing for Mercy.  I never liked the idea of this game, as people slobbering around in a tub of water, half biting apples until they finally snare one with their choppers.  They might as well call it Bobbing for Inflenza.

Ahh, "The Joys of Halloween", indeed!  I'll never forget that Halloween from years ago when I would chew apples hanging on a string with the neighborhood cutie.  Well, actually it was with Mr. Johnson, the crazy Nam Vet down the street and that was supposed to be "our little secret".  And it wasn't an apple.  And he was really dead.  And I hated dressing up like a poodle!  OK, I'm telling too much here, sorry!

BLACK CATS

Black cats have long been a Halloween symbol.  Much has been made of the increased instances of abuse and even ritual sacrifice of black cats around Halloween time, but thanks to advances in animal rights laws, Calico, Siamese, and Tabby cats are now sacrificed equally as often. 

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