Fun Vintage Halloween Ephemera: Ads, Witches, Ghosts & More
Vintage Halloween ephemera has something wonderfully odd about it. A strange witch on a magazine page, a grinning black cat, or a red devil being used to advertise something completely ordinary is often far more interesting than modern Halloween graphics. For this collection, I’ve gathered over 30 vintage Halloween images, including old postcards, magazine pages, advertising posters, printed cards and other bits of spooky paper ephemera. Some were made for Halloween, while others sneaked in simply because they are suitably strange, gothic, or creepy.
I already have a whole collection of vintage Halloween postcards on PictureBoxBlue, so I didn't want this to be just another page of cards. Instead, I've mixed in old adverts, magazine illustrations and other printed curiosities alongside witches, devils, ghosts, black cats, skeletons and pumpkins. Apparently, a large red devil, or another slightly sinister character, was once considered a perfectly reasonable way to sell everything from drinks to medicines. They certainly knew how to get your attention.
How To Download The Vintage Halloween Ephemera
To download an image, click on the title above the picture, and a larger high-resolution version will open in a new tab. Then save it to your computer or print it.
These images make great resources for Halloween crafting and decorating. Use them for junk journals, collages, scrapbooking, cards, party invitations, decoupage or print and frame your favourites. I particularly like the old adverts and magazine pages for collage, as you get the original lettering, aged paper and quirky illustrations all in one image.
Vintage Halloween Postcards
Card 1: Jack O'Lantern Cauldron
Halloween Time postcard with a full-moon face, flying bats, a witch by a cauldron, and a black cat.
Bewitching Halloween postcard with a silhouetted witch on a broom above a jack-o’-lantern and a warning about green-eyed spooks.
Halloween Greeting postcard with a couple at a piano reflected in a mirror and a verse.
Frances Brundage Halloween Greetings postcard with a clown standing on a smiling pumpkin and holding a black cat.
Halloween Cartoons
Cartoon 1: The Nightmare Series
Published on October 31, 1912, in the Washington Evening Star, the political cartoon titled "A HALLOWE'EN HOAX" by Clifford Berryman illustrates how the major political parties reacted to the chaotic 1912 presidential election.
This 1910 political cartoon titled "The Bugaboo" by Charles Lewis Bartholomew ("Bart") comments on fears surrounding Theodore Roosevelt's political influence.
Cartoon 4: Tammany's Halloween
“Tammany’s Halloween” cartoon from the Minneapolis Journal, Friday, October 31, 1913, with jack-o’-lanterns and a tiger at a New York City gate.
“Scaring Turkey” cartoon from the Minneapolis Journal, October 31, showing a man startled by pumpkin-headed figures.
Other Halloween Spooky Ephemera
Vintage Halloween party invitation card with a witch stirring a cauldron, a black cat and blank invite lines.
Paper mask from a comic magazine.
Ephemera 3: Halloween Magazine Cover
Wrigley’s Spearmint “The Perfect Gum” Halloween 1929 ad with children dressed as a bat and ghost before a full moon.
Harper’s Weekly spiritual photography montage showing William H. Mumler and several ghost photograph portraits.
Ephemera 6: Frankenstein Poster
Frankenstein “The Man Who Made a Monster” 1931 Universal Pictures poster with Boris Karloff and cast portraits.
Ephemera 7: Dreadful Illustration
This image depicts the legendary folklore figure Spring-heeled Jack leaping across rooftops with a captive woman in an illustration from a 19th-century Penny Dreadful.
Leonetto Cappiello poster for Anis Infernal, Miguel Serra Lerida, with a red devil holding a bottle.
Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen Chat Noir poster for Rodolphe Salis’s shadow theatre company with a black cat.
Ernesto Mephisto Equilibrist Phantasist magic poster with a devil-costumed performer and stage tricks.
Ephemera 11: Sax Playing Skeleton
More Vintage Halloween Images
If you haven't quite had enough of witches, ghosts and things that go bump in the night, there are plenty more spooky collections on PictureBoxBlue. Have a look at the Halloween art prints and spooky printables, as well as the collections of vintage skeleton illustrations and human skull drawings.
I love how varied these old images are. Some are genuinely creepy, others are more amusing than frightening, and a few are simply bizarre. That is really the fun of old ephemera. These bits of printed paper were never meant to end up together over a century later, but somehow they make a wonderfully quirky Halloween collection.
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