Happy Halloween!

With Halloween quickly approaching, it’s the perfect time of year to show off some of the great costumes and celebrations of years past that we have available on Ohio Memory!

To start off, the above photograph shows contestants waiting for the costume contest judges at Edgemont Elms, a park in Dayton, Ohio. Costumes pictured include a cowboy, a clown, an Indian, a spooky skeleton, and a very surprised-looking Dracula way in the back. Another photo from this same Halloween gathering can be seen below, although it doesn’t look like these folks made it to the final round of the contest.

While it looks like only one attendee came in costume to the party pictured above, the guests still look like they’re having a fine time carving pumpkins. And thanks to the submitting institution, we also have a record of these individuals by name, over 100 years later!

Costumes worn by the students of Rick’s Child Guidance Center, seen above around 1960, feature classic characters like ballerinas, witches, cats, Donald Duck, and a “Lone Wolf” just left of center. Rick’s was founded in the early 1950s as the first African American school in Columbus, and the second-oldest kindergarten in the city. More Halloween pictures can be seen on-site at the Ohio History Center in the RGCG Collection, AV 10.

Explore the rest of the Halloween-themed images we have in Ohio Memory, and see if you can find the following:

• the Hunchback of Notre Dame
• Bugs Bunny
• Mickey Mouse
• a pair of bunnies
• an owl

Happy hunting, and happy Halloween from Ohio Memory!

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Thanks to Lily Birkhimer, Digital Projects Coordinator at the Ohio History Connection, for this week’s post!