Crepe Paper Used For Many Halloween Items

A Dennison crepe paper apron, about 22 inches long.

Halloween collectibles are popular and fun. One type of Halloween decoration that you may have overlooked is crepe paper!

According to Stuart Schneider in Halloween in America (Schiffer Publishing, 2010,) crepe paper rolls were among the earliest Halloween decorations. Not only was it used to decorate walls, ceilings, doors and tables, but it was also made into costumes - or at least, part of costumes. It could be formed into ropes, ruffles or fringe.

Three colors on a roll was the most common, although some rolls had as many as six different colors.

Dennison is the most well-known of the crepe paper manufacturers, but two other companies with interesting designs were Bainbridge and American Tissue Mills.

In 1912, Dennison made four different crepe paper design rolls. Each was 10 feet long, 20 inches wide and sold for 10 cents. The design choices were “Witch and Kettle,” “Witch Parade,” “Cats and Bats,” and “Yellow Pumpkins.”

Each year, additional designs were added, and the rolls continued to be made into the 1930s. (The price also went up to 30 cents.) Among the new designs we Pumpkin Men and Cats; Cloud Effect with Witches; and Halloween Roof Scene.

The crepe paper paper products for Halloween included napkins, table covers, streamers and doilies.

Dennison’s Bogie Books provided ideas for making costumes of crepe paper. One popular item was a crepe paper apron, trimmed in cloth.

The printed Halloween rolls were discontinued during World War II, but some additional ones were made, in two colors, following the war and into the 1950s.

Schneider cautions that old crepe paper is apt to be flammable, so keep it away from candles or other open flames.

Donna Miller

Return to Index

Save Your Energy & Let This Steam Engine
Pull Your Cart

Just for fun...

In 1987, Don Steward published a delightful little book titled Wild, Wacky, and Wonderful Inventions. At that time, he game us permission to use excerpts from it in Old Stuff. I’m assuming that permission is still in place.

Here’s patent number 75,874, from 1868. It’s for a steam carriage.

“Believe it or not, this was one of the first ideas for a robot - just fill the boiler with water, light the fire and in an hour or so you would have a head of steam - then shift the power bar and those little legs would start pumping up and down, pulling you along at a couple miles an hour.

“You could steer by turning the little wheels [on the cart] and make the man take bigger steps by pulling down on the leg lever, There are all kinds of manual adjustments you make if desired though nowhere does it say what to do if the whole thing blows up, which all these early steam engines were prone to do.”

Return to Index

Milton Bradley Was A Printer Trying To
Show Off His Lithography

Just prior to the Civil War, a new company was founded by a man who soon rose to become one of the giants of the toy and games industry.

Milton Bradley was born in 1836. After trying the Lawrence Scientific School for a while, until he had to drop out for financial reasons, and working as a draftsman for a company that manufactured railroad engines and cars, he ended up by the late 1850s with his own lithography business.

This business had its ups and downs, and during one of the downs in 1860, a friend suggested they play a new game that he had received from England. Bradley found himself enjoying it a great deal, and decided that he should come up with a game that would not only be entertaining, but that would utilize eye-catching lithography.

He designed one in a week. A few months later, he headed for New York to see what he could do with the several hundred packages he had produced of what he called “The Checkered Game of Life.”*

At his very first stop, the shop owner bought them all. They were sold out by the second day. In the winter of 1860-61, he sold 40,000 copies of the game.

During the Civil War, Bradley produced a kit called Games for Soldiers, which he gave away to troops to help entertain them in the long hours when they were waiting for action.

After the war, Bradley came up with several toys that reflected his early training at Lawrence Scientific School. His version of the Zoetrope, or wheel of life, was a precursor of motion pictures. The Myrioptican, also a visual toy, turned by a crank and unfolded scenes of the Civil War.

Milton Bradley died in 1911, but by then the company was well established. Other toys coming from its factory included wheeled aquariums, lawn mowers, folding kites and model buildings. During World War I, the company made a model machine gun that shot six wooden bullets, and some lithographed soldiers for the bullets to hit.

In 1869, Bradley had published a book, Paradise of Childhood: A Practical Guide to Kindergartners, by Edward Wiebe. This publication inspired him to produce toys that were appropriate for use by young children, that would teach while they were being played with. His company turned out blocks and tops, various games and some watercolors suitable for children to use. Although it took many years for this part of the company to be profitable, it eventually paid off very well, Kindergarten toys remained a staple of the company line throughout its long history, including such things as the Sesame Street My First Games series.

There have been numerous purchases and mergers of major toy companies in recent years. In 1984, the Milton Bradley Company was purchased by Hasbro.

***

*When Bradley invented “The Checkered Game of Life” in 1860, he was living in Puritan New England. Games were taboo. They were considered wicked, and dice were among the most wicked things of all. However, he managed to invent a game that satisfied the morals of the day. Played on a checkerboard-like background, there were good spaces (bravery, honesty, etc.) and bad spaces (idleness, crime, etc.) If you landed on a good space, you advanced; landing on a bad space sent you backwards. Since he couldn’t use dice, he used a top-like spinner with six sides that showed how many spaces to move.

One hundred years later, in the 1960s, the Milton Bradley company dusted off this old game, and reinvented it as “The Game of Life.” In the 1990s, it was redone again so as to be politically correct. For example, in the 1960s’ version, a player could win $50,000 in a weekend in Las Vegas; in the 1990s’ version, he might get the $50,000 for finding a solution for pollution. And a 50th Anniversary edition of the 1960s version is now being sold in stores and online. That invention of Bradley’s in 1860 has done quite well for itself!

Donna Miller

Return to Index