These days folks in North America go overboard with Halloween decorations, costumes, parties, candy, and spending, but in the early 20th century they celebrated in a less ostentatious way.  As the autumn festival began to emerge in its modern form picture postcards entered their so-called “golden era”, ca. 1905–1915. Rarely seen or used in the US before 1893, an estimated 900 million postcards had been mailed two decades later. And quite a few of these were Halloween themed. Thousands of unique designs for Halloween cards were created, cards which helped popularize the celebration and standardize its imagery.

Even today much of the iconography is familiar — black cats, jack-o’-lanterns, witches’ brooms — but many of the games and rituals have fallen out of favor: scrying, ducking or bobbing for apples, pranks involving farm animals.

In recent years, I’ve noticed more Halloween themed greeting cards in the stores, but I don’t know anyone who actually sends them. And even with my advanced age, I’ve never received a Halloween themed postcard.