100 Years Ago: Halloween Fun in Amesbury
by Ron Klodenski
ACM Industrial Survey Volunteer
A Main Street music dealer invites party hosts to buy the latest dance music for their 1922 Halloween festivities. (From the online newspaper archive of The Amesbury Public Library.)
Browsing through the Amesbury Daily News pages from October, 1922, gives us some idea of how Amesbury residents celebrated or observed Halloween 100 years ago with social events and parties. It was amazingly similar to our present-day Halloween, but different, too, in those days immediately following World War I.
On the day after Halloween, the Daily News reported that “All Hallows Eve. Was Well Observed,” with several events “at churches and in lodge rooms.” The Halloween social at the Methodist Church vestry was covered by the newspaper in the most detail (admission charge: one apple), but events were also held by the Ladies’ Auxiliary to the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Lydia C. Bailey Auxiliary of the United Spanish War Veterans.
Private parties almost certainly must have been organized around town too. An advertisement for recorded music was intended for those celebrating Halloween at home. To add excitement to a party without a band or orchestra to provide music, it suggested playing the latest music on a phonograph for your guests’ dancing and listening pleasure. Dancing was big and rising in popularity in the Roaring Twenties!
The prominent advertisement by Fred W. Peabody, a Victor records dealer on Main Street, announced “Your Hallowe’en Dance Card.” It offers “a sumptuous array of fox trots,” an assortment of new dance numbers on 78-rpm records. Recommended selections include “Don’t Bring Me Posies” and “Birdie – A Sweetie-Tweety Fox Trot.” An illustration typical for the era shows a masked and costumed couple dancing the fox trot in front of a phonograph while a jack-o’-lantern watches from the windowsill.
As it is today, Halloween was an exciting event for kids, too. On Halloween afternoon, 1922, elementary school pupils at the Prospect Street School were ushered into a room with “a grewsome old witch” at a boiling cauldron in the corner and two “monster black cats.” The students received bags of nuts, apples and pears from “assistant witches, ghosts and goblins.” The costumes “provoked much laughter.” (Unfortunately, parents and friends were not invited to the event because “this school has no assembly room.”)
Unlike today, there seemed to be no mention of trick-or-treating in the 1922 papers. Maybe that’s because, according to Wikipedia, trick or treating was not widely practiced until the 1930s. But even without trick-or-treating, the night wasn’t completely free from pranks and a little vandalism. “Some of the boys were inclined to malicious mischief and had to be watched,” says one article in the days following Halloween. Another item reports that “some boys performed a malicious act that calls for serious condemnation.” Apparently these unidentified boys tore down a large gate, carried it down to Patten’s Pond and left it there. The article suggests that the town repair the fence, then find the boys and make their parents “foot the bill” for the repair.
If you’re inclined, treat yourself to discovering more about life in Amesbury in the days of our grandparents and great grandparents by browsing old newspapers on your computer or phone, courtesy of Amesbury Public Library. Click here to get started.