The Post Card Craze Helped Popularize Halloween and Thanksgiving

The postcard craze of the early 1900s embraced all the holidays. Two of the holidays, excluding Christmas and New Year’s, were the next largest, Halloween and Thanksgiving. For one cent, a colorful, often embossed card, the best printed in England or Germany, could be sent to any state. The average card costs less than twenty cents and the cheapest often three for a dime.

Both Halloween and Thanksgiving were celebrated as family holidays for adults and included the children. On the back of one of the cards shown is the following printed invitation: “Yourself and company are cordially invited to attend the Masquerade given by the LYRIC CLUB at Frankfort Temple – Thursday, Thanksgiving night – Nov. 24, 1910.” “Come and meet King Carnival!” “Mueller’s (no relation) popular orchestra.”‘

Just a few examples of the millions of cards produced over a period of a short span of twenty years are

here reproduced in “flat black”. The rise of greeting card companies, World War I, and other circumstances caused the surviving postcard companies to abandon holiday cards and concentrate on the ever-popular scenic view cards with the handwritten message… “Having a wonderful time, wish you were here”……

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