Costumes and disguises have figured into Halloween celebrations since the holiday’s earliest days. But it wasn’t until the mid-20th century that costumes started to look like what we know them as today.
Around the same time neighborhoods began organizing activities such as haunted houses to keep kids safe and occupied, costumes became more important (and less abstract and scary). They began to take the form of things children would have seen and enjoyed, like characters from popular radio shows, comics and movies.
In the 1950s, mass-produced box costumes became more affordable, so more kids began to use them to dress up as princesses, mummies, clowns or more specific characters like Batman and Frankenstein’s monster.
These vintage photos were found by Richard that show kids dressing up for Halloween in the 1950s.
