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When Thanksgiving Day was Halloween

By Nicole Levy | November 24, 2015 2:21pm
 In a tradition that some date back to the 1870s and that ran its course by the 1940s, New York City children spent Thanksgiving Day—an otherwise austere holiday—dressing up in costume and begging adults for apples, pennies and candy.
Thanksgiving Maskery
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This sounds like Halloween, doesn't it?

"Fantastically garbed youngsters and their elders were on every corner of the city," reads a New York Times report from 1899. "There were ... Harlequins, bandits, sailors, soldiers in khaki suits."

The newspaper was actually describing Thanksgiving Day festivities in the city.

In a tradition that some date back to the 1870s and that had run its course by the 1940s, New York City children spent an otherwise austere holiday dressing up in costume and begging adults for apples, pennies and candy.

Many wore oversized, ragged clothing and painted their faces in imitation of panhandlers on the street, earning themselves the name "ragamuffins," but all kinds of masks and disguises were also available for sale.

Boys frequently cross-dressed on "Ragamuffin Day," "tog[ging] themselves in the worn out finery of their sisters," and "gamboling in awkward mimicry" of them," Appleton Magazine observed in 1909.

The practice of Thanksgiving maskery originated as a "satirical perversion of poverty," according to the Bowery Boys' blog. It had evolved from the centuries-old custom of "mumming," in which men who were likely homeless and poor went from door to door asking for food and money, sometimes offering music in exchange.

Thanksgiving maskery and begging in New York City began to wane in the 1930s, as the tide of public opinion turned against the tradition.

"Ragamuffins Frowned Upon," read a Times headline in 1936. "Despite the endeavors of social agencies to discourage begging by children, it is likely that the customary Thanksgiving ragamuffins, wearing discarded apparel of their elders, with masks and painted faces, will ask passers-by, 'anything for Thanksgiving?'"

In 1937, the Madison Square Boys Club was reported as organizing a Thanksgiving parade "to discourage the Thanksgiving ragamuffins," notes New York Public Library historian Carmen Nigro.

That annual event would vanish, too, and these days, if you want to get in the ragamuffin spirit, you'll have to wait until Bay Ridge holds its annual Ragamuffin Parade next October.

In the meantime, peruse our photos of Thanksgiving maskers seeking sweets on New York City streets in 1911 and 1935.