OLD BRIDGE — Trish Hoerger, standing at far left in what she describes as a scarecrow costume, joined her friends for this Halloween photo on Karl Drive in Old Bridge in 1966. Most of the other children appear to sport classic plastic masks held in place with rubber bands. According to louisvillehalloween.com, the 1950s saw a boom in commercially available...
OLD BRIDGE -- Trish Hoerger, standing at far left in what she describes as a scarecrow costume, joined her friends for this Halloween photo on Karl Drive in Old Bridge in 1966.
Most of the other children appear to sport classic plastic masks held in place with rubber bands.
According to louisvillehalloween.com, the 1950s saw a boom in commercially available Halloween costumes, augmenting the more traditional homemade outfits of a bedsheet with eyeholes and burnt-charcoal beards.
"Two companies," the site notes, "rose above the crowd to become the kings of the boxed, dime store Halloween costume, Collegeville and Ben Cooper Inc. The costumes typically consisted of a plastic, vacuformed mask held on by an elastic band and a vinyl smock with an image of the character on it."
Of the two, the Collegeville company generally produced mostly unlicensed, generic costumes like ghosts, witches, skeletons, devils, cowboys, astronauts and princesses while Cooper Inc. offered costumes based on trending television and comic book characters.
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