Before football, Thanksgiving was all about turkeys, costumes, games, and going door-to-door begging for goodies.
If an adult didn’t give a costumed youngster a treat or penny when asked, they were in danger of being whacked with a sock full of flour.
Sound familiar?
Halloween and Thanksgiving did somewhat of a tradition switch in the 1930s. Before, many of the antics of Halloween used to be played out over the November holiday.
Thanksgiving was considered the time to play for grownups and children, and the centerpiece was the jack-o'-lantern.
“Merriment should run riot on Turkey Day,” the 1890 Newcastle News reported. “Let Thanksgiving be a night of rollicking fun for the children, little and big.”
The proper dress code for a Thanksgiving party, according to the 1913 Cheyenne State Leader, was a dainty and becoming Pierrot clown costume complete with fluffy black silk pompoms and a pointed cap.
Another Thanksgiving favorite was a shepherdess costume, and the newspaper even offered to send a pattern for the cosutme's draped panniers, straight bodice and slender skirt.
Halloween Stole From Thanksgiving
Stephen Winick, a folklorist for the American Folklife Center, said in a blog for the Library of Congress that the custom of going door-to-door begging for handouts in costumes was called Thanksgiving Masking.
Kids would dress up as beggars and silly characters and beg for candy and pennies.
According to Winick, folklorist Tad Tuleja dated American trick-or-treating to the 1930s and points out that even in the 1940s, articles about Halloween traditions do not mention it, suggesting it did not become truly widespread until later.
By contrast, Winick said, articles in the 19th century already mention Thanksgiving masking as an old and widespread tradition.
“In 1910, people weren’t “jumbling” Halloween and Turkey Day,” Winick said. “It was the Americans of the 1930s who “created a mashup” when they began trick-or-treating, importing a tradition already known as a Thanksgiving staple into the celebration of All Hallows.”
Thanksgiving “maskers" would run around cities, such as Cheyenne, dressed as beggars and silly characters. They would play at begging for alms and, if not given pennies, nickels or candy from adult pedestrians, would whack them with a sock full of flour and toot their horns in their victim’s ears, like in this photo circa 1910. (Library of Congress) 
Costumes, jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating were all originally Thanksgiving traditions. In the 1930s, Halloween started stealing these customs for their own. (Library of Congress) 
Thanksgiving “maskers" would run around cities, such as Cheyenne, dressed as beggars and silly characters. They would play at begging for alms and, if not given pennies, nickels or candy from adult pedestrians, would whack them with a sock full of flour and toot their horns in their victim’s ears, like in this photo circa 1910. (Library of Congress) 
The proper attire to wear to a Thanksgiving party was a costume according to the November 1913 Cheyenne State Leader. The newspaper even provided patterns to make your own clown or shepherdess costume. 
Thanksgiving “maskers" would run around cities, such as Cheyenne, dressed as beggars and silly characters. They would play at begging for alms and, if not given pennies, nickels or candy from adult pedestrians, would whack them with a sock full of flour and toot their horns in their victim’s ears, like in this photo circa 1910. (Library of Congress) 
Thanksgiving “maskers" would run around cities, such as Cheyenne, dressed as beggars and silly characters. They would play at begging for alms and, if not given pennies, nickels or candy from adult pedestrians, would whack them with a sock full of flour and toot their horns in their victim’s ears, like in this photo circa 1910. (Library of Congress)
The Wild Day of Thanksgiving
No one appears to know how the tradition of Thanksgiving Masking started but theories abound, even during the height of the custom as little maskers ran amok in Cheyenne and other bigger cities across America with their bags of flour and their demands.
In 1911, a Montana reporter for the River Press said that the custom is believed to have been originated by the foreign-born populations of the big cities, who, while they have no Thanksgiving in their own lands, made use of this holiday for their carnival masquerades after coming to America.
Thanksgiving time was the busiest season of the year for the sale of masks and false faces according to an 1897 reporter in Chicago.
“The fantastical costume parades, and the old custom of masking and dressing up for amusement on Thanksgiving Day, makes it so that the quantity of false faces sold at this season is enormous,” the reporter said.
The Thanksgiving Masking tradition was also called “Ragamuffin Day,” and an army of little beggars would run around asking for alms in all the big cities, including Cheyenne. This parade of children dressed in silly costumes appeared to have originated in New York City and spread from there. The ‘beggars’ would ask alms from adult pedestrians and if pennies or nickels were not supplied, they would hit the adult with a stocking full of flour and a horn would be honked in the unfortunate victim’s ears.
The reporters said there was no point in getting mad since it was the day for the kids to go wild.
“There are kids of all shapes, sorts and sizes, arrayed in the funniest, weirdest motley you can imagine,” a story in the Associated Press said in 1908. “They make the day hideous and raise the deuce generally.”
Thanksgiving was seen as a day of freedom for the children. The throwing of confetti and even of flour on pedestrians was an allowable pastime this one day of the year.
“They are out as gamins and are permitted to play at begging in the streets and at houses,” a Montana reporter wrote in a story in the Free Lance in 1911. “Horns and rattles are worked overtime.”
By the 1930s, the tradition of Thanksgiving Masking slowly faded out of memory as trick-or-treating during All Hallow’s Eve grew in popularity instead. There were no loud complaints of regret as the once popular Ragamuffin Parade of mischievous beggars with their horns and bags of messy flour were replaced by the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and football.
Thanksgiving masking and dressing up as clowns and beggars for Thanksgiving is now only a distant memory, remembered by a very few but it was once a fun and crazy time for many in Wyoming.
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
