Although it may be difficult to fathom, Halloween has been a custom for more than 2000 years. The history of Halloween can be found in antiquity. The majority mention Samhain, a Celtic holiday that marked the end of the harvest season.

 

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All Hallows' Eve or All Saints’ Eve, also known as Halloween, is a holiday that has come to be observed by dressing up in various costumes, carving pumpkins, and indulging in sweets. But for Wiccans, who consider this to be the season when the lines separating the natural and supernatural realms are the thinnest, the celebration also marks the beginning of the new year. Halloween is therefore said to be the most potent period for fortune-telling and making important predictions about the future.

 

Halloween concepts evolved over time, just like the costumes, which went from paganism's use of animal skins to the ugly and eerie masks of the 20th century to contemporary outfits inspired by fairy tale villains and superheroes.

 

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Costumes from the early 1900s were typically DIY and were made out of bedsheets, paper mache masks, and cooking aprons. This is due to the fact that most individuals could not afford store-bought, ready-made costumes. On Halloween, the Great Depression also had an impact. The major objectives were to conceal your identity and maintain the most disfigured clothing possible.

 

Minnie and Mickey, as well as well-known Halloween motifs like bats, black cats, and ghouls, might have been used as costumes. Children committed pranks, some of which were not as amicable as others. Throwing flour and stealing corpses were commonplace. Teenagers reportedly broke into automobiles and stole parts. In an effort to reduce the number of crimes, this led parents and other adults to popularise the concepts of trick-or-treating, haunted houses, and costume parties.

 

Now let us take a look at a collection of vintage Halloween costumes from the last century.

 

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1. A little dressed up with a skull on her head for trick or treating in 1925. The costumes back then would scare the life out of anyone. Which is weird because they should be scarier now more than ever since everything is so evolved and refined and we has access to almost all sorts of costumes or resources to make a scary one. But there was just something eerie about the 1900s and they was their costumes were so simple yet capable of giving anyone nightmares.

 

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2. Apart from the cowboy and the small billionaire Robber Baron, it is very difficult to determine the exact theme of these 1890s Halloween outfits, yet you can tell that a lot of thought was put to create them. 

 

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3. The author of A Harvest and Halloween Handbook, Pamela Layton McMurtry, shared this image of her grandmother from the 1920s dressed as a beautiful ballerina.

 

 

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4.  Children dressed up as A toy soldier, fairy princess, Bo Peep and a Dutch girl over 80 years ago around 1934.

 

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5. Before the nazis started using the Swastika this symbol represented good-luck and prosperity and people used to almost always have this symbol somewhere on their costumes for good fortune.

 

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 6. A princess with her buddies. A bunny rabbit, a cat and a scary skeleton at a halloween party in the 1940s. Again, the masks made the costume.

 

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7. Bugs Bunny and his pirate and goblin having a little fun with their gang. Carving up a Jack O Lantern has been a very old tradition.

 

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 8. You see, the original purpose of Halloween costumes was to fend off evil spirits. They have changed into foolish games and fun at some point in the last century. However, Back the they were taken seriously. Due to the Great Depression it was difficult for people to buy proper halloween costumes from somewhere so the had to make do with what they had or had to make costumes at home. This usually meant making some word of mask. While this was smart, it resulted in to some pretty messed up creepy mummified looking kids back then.

 

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 9. A man dressed up as the Michelin Man in the early 1900s. The official mascot of the Michelin tyre corporation is Michelin Man, sometimes known as Michelin Tyre Man. It was displayed in the 1894 Lyon Exhibition as a humanoid sculpture made of stacked white tyres.

 

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10. Paper mache Head pieces were an important part of a Halloween costume Back in the 1900s. Because it was a cheaper alternative to a proper halloween costume. Much like this group with paper heads and Donald Duck of course.

 

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 11. The effort put in to this costume is obvious, not only did they dress up themselves but they also dressed up their horses to go with their costumes. Now that is what we call utter dedication.

 

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12. A very unsettling photo of two girls with extremely creepy faces from the early 1900s. Our best guess is that their costumes are themed after a show or cartoon character.

 

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13.  Now that is one costume we have not seen on anyone else yet. Mushrooms! Along with a what seems to be a very pale looking scary man.

 

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14. She might be a witch but we are unable put our finger on a single thing that seems evil about this beautiful woman from the 1900s. When in doubt, simply wear a black, pointy hat.

 

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15. I cannot help but stare at the donkey costume. The wire holding the mouth together undoubtedly has a handmade appearance, but those eyes are absolutely terrifying.

 

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16. There were not many costume options available in the early 1900s. They might be dressed up as scary ghosts, but the kid crying on the bottom is hilarious.

 

 

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17.  Let's see, there is a scarecrow costume in the centre and what appears to be The Orphanage's inspiration in the front. In regards to the two at the end, could this have represented Halloween in the first fifty years of the twentieth century? The person on the right merely appears to have a blanket wrapped around his or her torso.

 

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18. We know for a fact that the person on the right is a witch. We believe the person on the left is a clown wearing a little hat, although we could be mistaken. The actual costume is remarkably clown-like. But they're still both creepy!

 

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19. What we see here appears to be a jester and his...helpers? In either case, picture waking up one morning with one of those masks on. Yikes. There’s something always unsettling about kids dressed up for halloween in the 1900s.

 

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20. This absolutely terrifying porcelain doll holding her porcelain doll and a teddy bear is sending shivers down our spine. Masks were a definite part of a costume in the 1900s. Makeup or face painting was also not so common as it is now.

 

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21. Now it could be just a random get up but it sure looks like something that is right out of a scary bedtime story book. Red Riding Hood perhaps? One things for sure, no one is ever even going to think about bothering this red riding hood in the forest. The soulless mask is giving off a very unsettling energy from this overall look.

 

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22. What we appear to be looking at are two life-size dolls—possibly Raggedy-Ann and Andy—and a clown on a chain. Anyway… let’s just say we don’t want to bump into to them.

 

 

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23. An age-old classic… A clown! Considering the fact that clowns nowadays can be an actual threat even when it is not halloween. This one seems like he is pretty friendly in general. 

 

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24. The Hon Mrs. Roland Cubitt dressed as "Three Candles" on October 10 for the Pageant Of The Superstitions, a feature of the "All Halloween Ball," which was repeated as a matinee at the Haymarket Theatre in London to benefit the Queen Charlotte Maternity Hospital Maintenance Fund. The costume was made by L & H Nathan Ltd. 

 

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25. Elias Children. The trio of Halloween Ghouls during the 1930s. These makeshift masks are enough to make a person shiver. Costumes were deliberately made grotesque and scary to ward off evil during the night of halloween considering it is believed the veil between the living and the dead and good and evil is thinest during. 

 

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26. Look alike of Freddy Kruger and… his Cat? From the 1940s. We wonder how parents slept at night with their children after dressing them up and looking at them with these costumes on.

 

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27. We are not really sure what this trio from 1917  represents but we think it’s Death, a Cat and a Ghost.

 

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28. It is a giant man costume. Gotta pat him on the back for wearing a costume that will genuinely frighten both parents, kids and even someone from this day and age.

 

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29. We believe they were aiming for the bandit-bandit duo from Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women," but something got lost in translation. Those masks give us the chills. 

 

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30. We think it might be a snowman… from Hell. Or it could be a ghost. Either way, notice how most of these handmade masks are mostly pointed from the top?

 

The Samhain Celtic harvest festival changed over time, adopting Christian traditions, European mysticism, and American commercialisation. Trick-or-treating, costumes, jack-o-lanterns, and scary movies are all part of the modern Halloween celebration; these traditions would likely be foreign to people who participated in Halloween's earlier versions.

 

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Halloween is a holiday celebrated each year on October 31, and Halloween 2022 will occur on Monday, October 31.

 

Halloween now, is more about light fun than anything celebratory or ritualistic. Since it is not considered as a serious event, there is also a decrease in the crime rate if compared to the early 1900s. With an estimated $6 billion in annual spending, Halloween is now the second-largest commercial holiday in the United States, right behind Christmas.