A Halloween card is a

greeting card A greeting card is a piece of card stock, usually with an illustration or photo, made of high quality paper featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment. Although greeting cards are usually given on special occasions such as birthday ...

associated with

Halloween Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...

. The concept originated in the 1890s

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, experiencing a peak of popularity there in the early 1900s. Until the advent of the common home telephone, Halloween cards occupied a role similar to

Christmas card A Christmas card is a greeting card sent as part of the traditional celebration of Christmas in order to convey between people a range of sentiments related to Christmastide and the holiday season. Christmas cards are usually exchanged during ...

s and

birthday card A birthday card is a greeting card given or sent to a person to celebrate their birthday. Similar to a ''birthday cake'', birthday card traditions vary by culture but the origin of birthday cards is unclear. The advent of computing and introductio ...

s. Today, many cards from the popular designers of the period are sought after as

memorabilia A souvenir (French language, French for 'a remembrance or memory'), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memory, memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collecte ...

History

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. Early Halloween cards typically depicted the same themes as Easter cards and

s, as publishers reused images for various holidays, with the caption signifying the specific holiday. 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. By 1909, the Souvenir Post Card Company of New York City produced 12 Halloween card designs. The popularity of Halloween cards rivaled that of

s until about 1930, by which time

telephone A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...

s were common household items and began supplanting the use of greeting cards. Halloween-themed postal cards were sold in

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

s and by private printers with displays in

general store A general merchant store (also known as general merchandise store, general dealer, village shop, or country store) is a rural or small-town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, someti ...

s. Their popularity and the holiday's commercial success was "ultimately determined" by women, particularly those in the

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. C ...

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

witch Witchcraft is the use of magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. According to ''Enc ...

es,

pumpkin A pumpkin is a cultivar, cultivated winter squash in the genus ''Cucurbita''. The term is most commonly applied to round, orange-colored squash varieties, but does not possess a scientific definition. It may be used in reference to many dif ...

s, and

goblin A goblin is a small, grotesque, monster, monstrous humanoid creature that appears in the folklore of multiple European cultures. First attested in stories from the Middle Ages, they are ascribed conflicting abilities, temperaments, and appearan ...

s. Other Halloween postcard themes included

fortune-telling Fortune telling is the spiritual practice of predicting information about a person's life. Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115–116. The scope of fortune telling is in principle ...

and romance or courtship. Designs also reflected the

racism in the United States Racism has been reflected in discriminatory laws, practices, and actions (including violence) against Race (human categorization), racial or ethnic groups throughout the history of the United States. Since the early Colonial history of the Uni ...

of the era: of the postcards produced by the

Rust Craft Greeting Card Company The Rust Craft Greeting Card Company was an American greeting card and printing company and owner of television stations. The company The company was founded in a bookstore in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1906 by its owner, Fred Winslow Rust. The c ...

from 1927 to 1959 catalogued by Wendy Morris, twelve categories of ethnic imagery were identified. The most common theme being black children, appearing on 42% of cards depicting an ethnic or racial difference from the white majority.

Designers

Well-known early postcard printers include Winsch and

Raphael Tuck & Sons Raphael Tuck & Sons was a business started by Raphael Tuck and his wife in Bishopsgate in the City of London in October 1866, selling pictures and greeting cards, and eventually selling postcards, which was their most successful line. Their busi ...

. Both printers employed artists whose postcard designs are

collectable A collectable (collectible or collector's item) is any Physical object, object regarded as being of value or interest to a collecting, collector. Collectable items are not necessarily monetarily valuable or uncommon. There are numerous types ...

s sought by Halloween memorabilia

collectors Collector(s) may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Collector (2011 film), ''Collector'' (2011 film), an Indian Malayalam film * Collector (2016 film), ''Collector'' (2016 film), a Russian film * Collectors (film), ''Collectors'' (film), a 2020 So ...

. 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. Among the artists employed by Tuck were Francis Brundage, and the "queen of postcard artists", Ellen Clapsaddle.

History

Designers

Notes

References

Sources

External links