One centuries-old Halloween tradition

One centuries-old Halloween tradition – the carving of the jack-o’-lantern – has illuminated cold autumn nights for hundreds of years, and it’s an image synonymous with the spooky holiday.

Not pumpkins, but turnips

We can trace jack-o’-lanterns back to Europe in the mid-1600s; back then, they were simply referred to as a lantern – vegetables such as pumpkins and turnips whose insides were scooped out and the exterior carved with rudimentary shapes and designs, from which a candle placed inside the hollowed-out item would glow. Later called ‘jack-o’-lanterns,’ the origin of their name is a mystery – it may have referred to night watchmen working in England; or it may have come from an Irish folktale about Stingy Jack, a drunkard who loses a bet with the devil and is doomed to wander the Earth using only a hollowed turnip to light his path ahead.

Regardless of where their name came from, these lanterns were created for the purpose of warding off evil spirits; in the beginning, they were left on windowsills instead of outside one’s front door.

Here comes harvest time

Here in North America, ‘jack-o’lantern’ first appeared in written form around 1837 and was associated with the harvest season, not Halloween. The link between the jack-o’-lantern and Halloween began in 1866. The following appeared in a Canadian newspaper:

The old time custom of keeping up Hallowe’en was not forgotten last night by the youngsters of the city. They had their maskings and their merry-makings, and perambulated the streets after dark in a way which was no doubt amusing to themselves. There was a great sacrifice of pumpkins from which to make transparent heads and face, lighted up by the unfailing two inches of tallow candle.

Jack-o’-lantern Featured

Just less than two decades before, the jack-o’-lantern featured prominently in author Washington Irving’s short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” which told the tale of a schoolteacher’s frantic pursuit by what is assumed to be the ghost of a Revolutionary War soldier who was decapitated in battle and whose head was replaced by a jack-o’-lantern. The teacher is presumed to be missing the next morning, and the only “evidence” of the pursuit is a smashed jack-o’-lantern nearby.

 Pumpkins would be the new crop that began to be used in the U.S. with the wave of Irish who immigrated there in the 1840s due to Ireland’s potato famine. 

“They arrived in America to celebrate Halloween and were able to find a very particular new world crop that was much larger and easier to carve than their root vegetables of home; the winter squash, the most famous of which is a pumpkin,” according to an article published by Andrew Huntley of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

A spooky squash

By the mid-19th century, jack-o’-lanterns carved from turnips and pumpkins had found their way into folklore and literature and were commonplace; in 1867, the relatively new medium of photography captured the first image of a jack-o’-lantern; the photo was published in Harper’s Weekly. And starting in 1842, magazines began printing instructions on how to carve pumpkins with different kinds of faces.

Before the tradition of mischievous kids and teens dashing the jack-o’-lanterns to the ground began, those same youths would use the carved pumpkins to frighten others.

“Before Halloween was widely celebrated in the United States, kids started taking pumpkins — which were overwhelmingly plentiful during the months of September and October — and carving faces into them. After sticking a candle in the pumpkin to light it up, kids would run around, frightening people with the spooky-looking objects,” according to an October 2018 article by TIME Magazine.

Though the holiday of Halloween began being celebrated in North America in the mid-19th century, the holiday was mostly meant for adults and considered much too scary for kids. By the early 1900s, that had started to change, however, and by the mid-20th century, families began to throw lavish Halloween parties, complete with games like bobbing for apples and paper decorations from companies like the Dennison Paper Co. Between 1912 and 1934, Dennison published an annual catalog that included Dennison products and ideas for Halloween parties.

Don’t forget to snack on those seeds

With the arrival of a more family-friendly Halloween season, pumpkin carving began to become a family affair, teaching children how to fine-tune their motor skills and use their imagination. While carving your pumpkin into a bonafide Halloween jack-o’-lantern, roasting pumpkin seeds can add a tasty element to the carving process, though the cleaning of the seeds can prove laborious. One of many easy pumpkin seed-roasting recipes can be found at www.tasteofhome.com/article/roast-pumpkin-seeds.

Outrageous Pumpkins

Outside of the home, pumpkin-carving contests allow novice and veteran carvers alike to test and show off their skills to audiences. The most well-known of those can be found on The Food Network – “Outrageous Pumpkins,” in which carvers vie for a $25,000 prize.

“’Outrageous Pumpkins’ is not just another carving competition; it’s a revolutionary display of artistry, craftsmanship, and the sheer power of imagination. This vibrant reality show unfolds on the Food Network and elevates the age-old autumn tradition of pumpkin carving into a competitive spectacle,” reads a description of the program. “Witness elite carvers from across the nation push their creative boundaries to craft the most astounding jack-o’-lanterns ever seen. With a perfect blend of classic designs and audacious 3D carvings, ‘Outrageous Pumpkins’ stands unparalleled in its endeavor to reimagine and redefine the art of pumpkin sculpting.”

It’s not too late to learn

And if you’re new to the art of carving up a jack-o’-lantern but don’t have any courses being offered in your area, you’re in luck – a business called Manic Pumpkin Carvers offers an online workshop for beginners later this month.

Live Pumpkin webinar

The live pumpkin webinar – only for beginners – is $15 and takes place from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 29. To register, visit www.maniacpumpkincarvers.com.

When you’re finished carving up your scary squash and ready to leave it on your porch, keep in mind that completed jack-o’-lanterns will look their best for three to five days before they begin to soften, get moldy, and spoil, according to Good Housekeeping.

We’d also love to see your Halloween jack-o’-lantern creations. Send photos of yours to editor@discovervintage.com.

The covered bridge

The covered bridge evokes visions of a lazy Sunday afternoon drive through an idyllic countryside. But the covered bridge is an increasingly rare attraction, much like so many of the tiny towns to which they stand as gateways.

A vanishing treasure

By the arrival of the 21st century, only one in 10 American covered bridges have survived – though, if built well, they can last up to 100 years. The primary culprit, of course, is the cost to maintain and restore them. Still, their history and their stories are being kept alive by the people and institutions around them, making them beautiful, historic pieces of engineering.

According to Iowa State University’s Institute for Transportation, more than 9,000 covered bridges in the U.S. have been lost since the earliest-known construction date of 1800.

And, according to The National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges’ website, many reasons exist for the advent of these structures, including “providing shelter during inclement weather or so horses wouldn’t be afraid to cross the water. However, the real reason is to protect the structure supporting the bridge. Without protection from the weather, the wooden timbers supporting the bridge would decay and eventually collapse. By keeping them dry, they will last much longer.”

The oldest surviving covered bridge in the U.S. was built in 1825 in Cooperstown, NY, while the longest American bridge is relatively new – built in 2008 in Ashtabula County, OH, it spans 613 feet. Speaking of Ohio, it’s the state with the second most covered bridges, with 148. The top spot can be claimed by Pennsylvania, which has 213.

A blog post on the website of Kansas-based Kaw Valley Engineering says the design of such bridges is simple.

Paint it red for safety, longevity

“Typically, the bridge is a combination of an arch for its load bearing capabilities and truss for rigidity. Patented in 1817, the Burr Arch Truss is the most common design for a covered bridge,” Kaw Valley Engineering’s post explains. “Looking at the historical bridges, you will notice something in common with many covered bridges – the color! Most bridges were painted ‘barn red.’ It would be great to say this was for safety or longevity reasons. But it is simply a cost-cutting measure. Barns, bridges, and other wooden structures were typically painted red in the 1800s because it was cheap to make. All three ingredients were readily available: milk, rust, and lime.”

Though they’re exceedingly rare to view in person, covered bridges appear in pop culture quite a bit – most notably in the critically acclaimed 1995 film “The Bridges of Madison County,” starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep, based on the 1992 novel of the same name.

Filmed in Madison County, Iowa’s town of Winterset

Filmed in Madison County, Iowa’s town of Winterset (also the birthplace of Western film icon John Wayne), “The Bridges of Madison County” tells the story of an Italian war bride who lives with her husband and children on a farm in Iowa. When a photographer for National Geographic comes to town to take pictures of the town’s iconic covered bridges, the two strike up a brief but passionate love affair (the book and film would later be adapted into a 2014 musical).

An annual celebration of the past

The real Madison County takes great pride in its storied history and the popularity of its covered bridges, hosting its annual Madison County Covered Bridge Festival. The event, which has taken place each autumn since 1970, features craft demonstrations; food, arts and crafts vendors; live music; an antique car show; and a parade, among other activities. This year’s festival takes place Oct. 12-13 at the Winterset Courthouse Square. In addition, attendees can take bus tours of each of the county’s covered bridges, as well as a stop at a historic schoolhouse.

Past participants in the festival say they enjoy the festival’s small-town charm and the local historical perspective it provides.

“We love the small town feel to Winterset on festival weekend. The town square becomes the hub with a lovely selection of street vendors and shops,” one Facebook user wrote on the festival’s page earlier this summer. “We enjoy visiting the covered bridges, but mostly we have enjoyed how the local community have welcomed us into their family and we have made lifetime friendships.”

Another user wrote, “Can’t wait to roam the countryside again, checking out the bridges, making new friends, and eating good food!”
Events like Winterset’s festival keep alive the memory of the covered bridges that represented a simpler time. It’s a time, according to blogger Linda Hosler, we’ll never regain.

Revelers young and old have been reliving the thrill of the circus finally coming to town by collecting circus memorabilia – and the hobby continues to be on the rise, even if circuses themselves seem like a thing of the past.

“Collecting circus items remains a vibrant and colorful hobby, especially paper products—photographs, posters, literature, business records—and artifacts,” according to a 2022 article by Ingrid Floyd on antiquetrader.com. “The grandiosity of the Big Top, with its music and artistry, resonates still in the heart of every collector.”

Organizations such as the Circus Historical Society (www.circushistory.org) seek to preserve items from the heyday of the circus, which is older than one might think. The first circus took place in 1793 in Philadelphia, with the practice of the performances being housed in a large tent added around 1825. Famed businessman P.T. Barnum joined the scene in 1871, and his partnership with the five Ringling brothers would eventually make the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus a household name, synonymous with circuses.

Collectibles tell tales of the trends and personalities in the industry. For instance, Lloyd writes in Kovels Antique Trader’s blog, a famous clown in the 20th century, Jack LeClair, who drew up schematics for a prototype of a fat suit he would wear in his act. “If a collector obtains the ‘fat suit,’ a photograph of the clown wearing it, and LeClair’s schematic, that’s ‘auction magic,’” Lloyd writes, quoting a Florida auctioneer, Brian Hollifield.

Also expensive but relatively more affordable, of course, are the posters and other ephemera advertising circuses coming to town. These will always increase in value, Berry says, due to the very nature of ephemera itself – items made of paper that aren’t meant to be saved, but instead discarded.

Barnum, known for his innovative marketing just as much as his “Greatest Show on Earth,” would employ teams of people to plaster up the posters in any town within a half hour of the venue where the circus was to take place.

“But these colorful, vibrant posters slapped on barns, sheds and shop windows were only expected to survive a couple of weeks,” Lloyd writes.

Those posters that did survive after the circus left town have gone on to become quite valuable, and according to Antique Trader, posters from the 1930s and ‘40s are especially attractive, vibrant, and colorful – but beware of reproductions, of which there are many. Most of today’s reproductions of classic circus posters were made in the 1960s, “and in the 1970s, the Ringling Bros. sold reproductions at performances,” Lloyd says.

Those who collect circus posters should consider the item’s dimensions when looking for an original, according to Berry.
“An authentic poster measures 42 inches long by 28 inches wide for a one sheet or has dimensions of multiples or fractions of that,” he says in Lloyd’s article.

Lloyd goes on: “Check if a poster has a “P” letter in its margin followed by a stock number. An authentic circus poster does not. Lastly, using a jeweler’s loupe, examine the poster. A reproduction will have pixelation.”

Although the Ringling Bros. circus made a return in 2023 after a six-year hiatus, circus enthusiasts can get a more complete look at the industry and its history at Circus World, located in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Opened in 1959 and with seven buildings in its complex listed on the National Historic Landmark roster, Circus World offers not only daily circus performances, but also music revues, exhibits, and a massive collection of historical circus memorabilia (the site was home to the original Ringling Bros. Circus from 1884-1918, shortly before its merger with Barnum’s circus). Currently, Circus World is maintained by the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Besides boasting a massive collection of more than 9,000 historical circus posters, Circus World also possesses nearly 300 colorful circus wagons from across the United States and Europe. It’s the single largest collection in the world, according to the attraction’s website, www.circusworld.com. And if you can’t make the trek up north to Wisconsin, you can always visit www.circus-collectibles.com, a site displaying the sizable collection of Jovan Andric, a collector from Serbia whose collection includes posters, programs, flyers, tickets, and other ephemera from circuses all over the world (though Andric says he likes to focus on the circus culture of Italy, since they visited his country the most often).

“My passion for circus culture and circus advertisement has been a part of my life since early childhood,” Andric writes on the website. “It was in the mid-1970s when I became fascinated with the colorful visuals of magically drawn animals, clowns and performers covering city walls and store windows. Around the age of 4, I remember noticing posters on street light posts and observing every detail on them.”

If such coveted original items aren’t exactly in your budget, more affordable circus collectibles can be found everywhere online. Original games, photos and postcards, coin banks, cast-iron and tin toys, and even vintage popcorn and peanut bags can be found on sites like 1stdibs.com and gameroomshow.com.

It’s often said that planning a trip is just as fun as the trip itself, and travel posters have long given would-be travelers the chance to dream of faraway locations and awakened their thirst for adventure.

Not only glimpses of otherworldly locations, vintage travel posters specifically can be considered works of art, depicting soaring landscapes, wonderous works of architecture, everyday life of people in distant countries, scenes of serenity and tranquility that beckoned us with their vibrant colors and lively fonts.

Lithographic posters boost “explosion in pleasure travel”

We can trace travel posters’ history back to the late 19th century, when they weren’t so visually appealing – they still included pictures and visuals, but the travel posters of the 1890s were often crowded with text describing destinations in detail as well.

“At first, posters were crowded with information – a complexity of images, text and type-faces, but later developed into simplified, idealized and more graphic images of these new and exotic colonial lands,” according to an article on photography blog www.imagesofvenice.com.

In the early 1900s, technological advances of the previous decades were front and center as the posters became more visually appealing. This trend of a mixture of typography and art created the Golden Age of Travel, from the early 1900s to World War II.

“The lithographic poster came into being just at the dawn of the explosion in pleasure travel and this new means of advertising, was ideally suited to educate and tempt the consumer,” the venice.com article reads. “Posters were first utilized in countries such as Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands during colonial times; for advertising large exhibitions, attended by both the trade and public.”

The big names in travel poster art included Adolfo Hohenstein of Italy, Emile Cardinaux of Swtizerland, and Hugo d’Alesi of Italy, who were among the first to combine stunning visual elements with bold, powerful text in their posters, created for travel companies to advertise themselves. Pasted up in public areas such as travel agencies, train stations, airports, and docks, they were a new way to help the travel industry promote destinations for a public hungry for adventure. Gillan notes that travel posters of the first half of the 20th century took inspiration from trends in design, among them Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Impressionism, Cubism, and Modernism.

Taking to the skies

In the early 20th century, the relatively new method of travel – that of flight – captured the imaginations of a public eager to take to the skies. Unfortunately, until at least the end of the Great Depression, flying in an airplane was an activity only enjoyed by the wealthy and affluent.

“The very first commercial air flight took off on January 1st of 1914 from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Tampa, Florida,” writes Jesse Gillan of The Journal of Antiques in a 2017 article. “By the 1920s, Charles Lindbergh reached iconic celebrity status with his dream of crossing the Atlantic. Collectibles with his likeness and his plane The Spirit of St. Louis were sold across the United States and are still easy to find in most antique stores or on eBay. His transatlantic trip in 1927 proved to the world that air travel was a quick and safe option, opening new parts of the world to vacation exploration.”

Like numerous other industries, the travel industry saw a boost after the end of World War II in 1945. And, of course, the following Baby Boom beginning in 1946 brought with it larger families in newly-created suburbs with more disposable income.

“Following the war, travel posters created in the late 1940s and 1950s opted for more serene and inspirational views of landscapes and cityscapes of potential destinations,” Gillan writes. “Many well-known artists got their start during this period by lending their art to publishers of travel posters. This period was a time for growth in the travel industry. Families were growing after the war and interest in space travel was afoot.”

The airplane is your canvas

The era of intercontinental travel accompanied the end of the war as well. Finally, travelers could enjoy journeys overseas that were convenient, comfortable, and reliable. Travel posters became more bold and colorful, too,

“The decades from roughly 1960-1980 were the real heyday for travel agencies and advertising for extended trips,” Gillan notes. “This is when producers of travel posters and promotional ephemera began to use color photographic imagery with improved printing processes. Posters could now be created faster and in far greater quantities. The graphics changed, too, becoming bold and stylish, and reflecting the modern and psychedelic styles of the ‘60s and ‘70s.”

During the mid-20th century, airlines hired more and more artists whose works wouldn’t only encourage intercontinental travel; some of them even became considered works of art. David Klein, an American artist commissioned by TWA, brought his abstract style to the airline’s posters, with one 1957 poster depicting New York City becoming a part of the permanent collection at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art, according to Gillan. This, he wrote, “contributed to the elevation of poster art to fine art.”

The art continued to spread, improve, and become produced in greater numbers. One airline, Braniff Airlines, even became known for commissioning painters to create works of art on the plane itself, “in effect providing flying advertisements. … You can find television ads from this time featuring Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali praising the flight in Braniff planes,” Gillan writes.

Today, the concept of travel poster as fine art endures, with some of the more rare posters from the first half of the 20th century fetching $50,000 or more at auction. Original posters from the 1960s onward are usually priced between $200 and $500 in very good condition.

“(Travel posters) are purchased by both collectors and individuals looking to capture the dream of new and faraway lands, where anyone can become an explorer and see sites unknown,” according to Gillan. “Purchasing one of these vintage posters brings that sense to your home or office every day.”

We all take indoor plumbing for granted, and that includes in the bathroom. But before the advent of this technology, the outhouse gave us a place to “do our business,” as it were.

Toiletology.com, a blog that includes professional research, studies and reviews of toilets, also includes a history of outhouses, those small structures that include a hole in the floor that emptied into “a small tin or bucket that caught the waste; it had to be emptied daily by one lucky winner.”

A daily necessity

Outhouses – or “necessaries,’ as they were sometimes referred to — are only around 500 years old. Throughout their early history, they were found in both rural and urban areas. As urban areas’ populations increased and cities began to adopt indoor plumbing, however, outhouses posed a significant public health concern, and later in their history, they were mostly only found in the countryside.

“Constructed of wood, they were easy to relocate if need be, and they were typically well built and painted for added durability,” according to Toiletology.com. “The interior hole in an outhouse was between three and six feet, and there might be more than one hole if the outhouse was catering to a family.”

If you’ve ever seen an outhouse, you might first notice either a moon- or a sun-shaped hole carved into the door. This wasn’t only included for decoration, Toiletology notes – the symbols denoted who could use the facility.

“This was common among American outhouses during the day and signified whether the structure was for men or women,” the blog reads. “A moon meant that it was a female-only outhouse, as the moon was a symbol of the Roman goddess Luna. The sun, which represented the Greek god Apollo, meant that it was a men’s outhouse.”

They went by many names besides ‘outhouse’ – privy, little house, back house, latrine, and water closet, just to name a few. Located roughly 50 to 100 yards away from the house, they were far enough away from one’s house that they afforded plenty of privacy, but close enough that one didn’t have to walk a great distance just to relieve himself or herself.

“Some owners camouflaged the structures with plantings of hollyhocks, trumpet vine, wisteria, and honeysuckle,” according to an article published in “Capper’s Farmer,” published by Topeka, KS-based Ogden Publications. “Sometimes the structures were placed near the family’s wood pile, so users, on their way back to the house, could pick up and carry in an armload of wood, so there would always be wood to feed the stove.”

Hand me the sports section, would ya?

What about cleanup when you were finished using the outhouse? Forget about toilet paper, writes the late historian Thomas Webb.
“Before the availability of mass-produced toilet paper during the mid-1800s, people had to resort to using what was free and available, even if it didn’t provide the most effective or comfortable results,” Webb wrote, “Options included the Sears and Roebuck catalog, rocks, leaves, newspapers, grass, moss, animal fur, corn cobs, coconut husks, sticks, sand, and sea shells.”

In many rural areas, indoor plumbing and indoor toilets were unavailable as late as the 1930s and 1940s. Outhouse users, however, had unlikely friends in President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. President Roosevelt founded the Work Projects Administration, an entity whose purpose was to replace rural outhouses that had fallen into disrepair.

“With three workers and $5, the Administration could construct a new outhouse in 20 hours. These new and improved outhouses included proper ventilation, privacy, and flooring too,” according to Toiletology. “The Work Projects Administration successfully completed two million outhouses during its run. The First Lady’s commitment to the cause led to outhouses earning the nickname ‘The Eleanor’” (By the postwar period in America, the outhouse mostly fell out of use, replaced even in rural areas by indoor toilets).

Outhouse memories: Some good, but mostly bad

In a 2014 column published in Louisville, Kentucky’s The Courier-Journal, columnist David Strange wrote that despite their faults, outhouses hold a certain “rustic charm.”

“I remember birds singing as their feet tapped a dance on the sheet metal roof; occasional rain drops and falling acorns making their own drumbeat on that same roof; breezes gently blowing off the nearby cattle fields as the cows mooed their contented bass accompaniment off in the distance,” Strange wrote. “I even remember listening to the elder men tell fascinating stories as they stood outside, chatting with one another, waiting their turn or just enjoying the fellowship and the day.”

Still others who remember using outhouses share memories that clearly illustrate why they’re best remembered only as a necessity of a time gone by.

“For kids, the outhouse was horrific in the summer. Wasps infiltrated the outhouse every year, building honeycombed hotels seemingly overnight. The heat of the day made the outhouse even more aromatic than usual,” columnist Mary Garrison Leech wrote in The Canton Daily Ledger in 2022. “The walls of our outhouse were planks of tired wood, with splintery gaps here and there. Peeking eyes could watch us if they dared to brave the elements and atmosphere, but that usually wasn’t a problem. The mosquitos, however, had no qualms about sneaking through the cracks to pay us a toll call. Some of the worst itchy bites I ever had were in places I never thought a mosquito could find.”

Not everyone, however, would rather keep outhouses relegated to the past; indeed, conservation efforts exist by a few dedicated individuals, the most notable in Clarinda, Iowa, by Teresa Minard, a retired schoolteacher, fondly nicknamed “the Outhouse Lady” by the locals. Minard noted in a 2014 USA Today article that some historical organizations such as The Iowa Barn Foundation are interested in maintaining the few remaining outhouses in the interests of history.

But most of the people with whom she speaks don’t see outhouses as relics to be preserved.

“(People) like to reminisce,” Minard said, “but they don’t want to go back to that era.”

Toiletology’s blog article seems to agree – when it comes to outhouses, the pull of nostalgia is strong. “While society has moved on to more upscale portable toilets and public restrooms,” it reads, “there is something nostalgic about finding an outhouse out in the country.”