Freaky Harvest: The Lost Ritual of Thanksgiving Maskers

And you thought Uncle Ernie’s marshmallow salad was an unusual Thanksgiving tradition.

Turns out, America’s beloved autumn feast looked a lot like Halloween at the turn-of-the-20th-century. Thanksgiving revelers from New York to L.A. danced through the streets in supremely strange masks and eerie cloth veils, rattling their noisemakers. Elaborate masquerade balls were held for adults, while costumed children rang doorbells begging for pennies or gum candy. The long-lost celebration was so popular, in fact, that an 1897 article from the Los Angeles Times declared Thanksgiving to be “the busiest time of the year for manufacturers of false faces.”