Hallowe’en in 1924

by Erin Doane, Senior Curator

If you lived in Elmira 100 years ago, on October 31 you would not see children in costumes trick-or-treating. Going house-to-house collecting candy and other goodies on Halloween just wasn’t a thing yet. Archivist Rachel Dworkin wrote a great blogpost last year about the history of trick-or-treat. Click here to read it. 

You may still hear your doorbell on Hallowe’en night in 1924. When you go to answer it, however, no one’s there. Ha! You’ve become a victim of a classic prank. It was common for youngsters to sneak around on the night of Hallowe’en engaging in mischief that ranged from the innocent door knock-and-run to malicious acts of theft and vandalism. On October 29, 1924, the Star-Gazette ran an article from Washington D.C. describing the city’s regulations for a safe and sane Hallowe’en. Throwing bricks and using flour for confetti were strictly prohibited and people could not wear masks on the street. Horn tooting and standard confetti tossing was permitted, however, if gently done. Pictures of chorus girls should not under any circumstances be posted on church doors, nor undertakers’ signs on doctors’ doors.

Police and residents here were also worried that mischief may get out of hand on Hallowe’en. In Elmira Heights, special police did extra patrols October 27-31 to keep pranksters in check. Another potential solution was to provide kids with so many activities around the holiday that they didn’t have the energy or inclination to get into trouble. Both the Elmira Free Academy and Southside High School hosted parties. Grace Church, First Baptist Church, Westside M.E. Church, the King’s Daughters Class of Oakwood Avenue M.E. Church, the Christian Endeavor Society of the Baptist Church, the Young People’s Fellowship of Trinity Church, the Christian Endeavor Society of the Baptist Church in Horseheads, and the First Church of Christ, Disciples all entertained young people and their families at Hallowe’en parties, dances, and masquerades in 1924.  

The Neighborhood House hosted two Hallowe’en parties – one on October 30 for boys and one on October 31 for girls. Nearly 300 boys attended the festivities. In order to get into the party, they had to pass through a “Chamber of Horrors” filled with ghosts, goblins, electrified stair railings, and jangling chains and tin pans. The awesome sounds, sights, and sensations reportedly sent thrills down their spines. Once inside the gymnasium, they enjoyed games, various races including sack, crab, wheelbarrow, water pan, candle, and shoe races, and pie and doughnut eating contests. The best costumes won prizes and each boy got apples to take home.

The Neighborhood House, c. 1925

The Southside Athletic Association, the Westside Community Association, and the North Main Street Better Business Club also hosted large neighborhood Hallowe’en celebrations specifically to keep youngsters from getting up to mischief such as ringing all the doorbells in town or heaving ancient cabbages on clean front porches. All three parties were free and open to the public.

The Southside Athletic Association’s Hallowe’en carnival took place on October 30 at the playground at Miller and Keefe Streets. The entire playground was lit up with red flame lights. More than 3,000 people enjoyed games, refreshments, and a big bonfire. The highlight of the evening was the greased pig chase. When the slicked-up animal was released, pandemonium broke loose. The Star-Gazette reported the next day that the porker was finally caught by John R. Mack. But then two weeks later, it published an article claiming that Johnnie Sweeney had caught the greased pig but then had it stolen from him. An unnamed man told the boy he was a member of the organizing committee, took the animal from him, and then ran off with it. The Southside Athletic Club promised to buy little Johnnie another pig.

The Westside Community Association celebration took place on October 31 at the playground on Hoffman Street. Festivities began with a parade of about 200 costumed children with prizes awarded from most comical costumes. The 1,000 attendees snacked on popcorn and apples, played games, enjoyed musical entertainment, and danced around a large bonfire.

Star-Gazette, October 22, 1924

The North Main Street Better Business Club hosted a large, well-advertised Mardi Gras Hallowe’en carnival on October 31 as well. North Main Street was closed from West Clinton to West Fourth Streets for the event. The party began with a parade of men, women, and children dressed up as ghosts, clowns, gnomes, elves, bandits, angels, male and female impersonators, and other characters. Local businesses and residents donated hundreds of dollars’ worth of prizes for those in the best costumes including toys, musical instruments, silk hose, flowers, candy, perfume, various hats, sacks of flour, a large ham, and cold, hard cash. After the parade, several thousand people enjoyed music played by the Elmira College orchestra and the Italian band, and entertainment from a troupe of performing donkeys. There were also refreshments and a large bonfire. 

Star-Gazette, November 1, 1924

The morning after Hallowe’en, the results were in: remarkably few instances of depredation or property damage were reported compared to previous years. The strategy of hosting a ton of parties to keep kids out of mischief was a success! Some of the tricks that were still pulled during the night included youngsters ringing the old ball at School No. 5, signs for “ice cream,” “boy wanted,” and “for rent” appearing on people’s homes, and windshields and windows being painted with soap. Police Chief Weaver admitted that harmless pranks were winked at by the police but his officers did go after more egregious offenders. A group of youths on Grove Street “jacked” up an automobile to see what would happen and were taken to police headquarters. They were given a warning and sent home. Another group used a ladder to let down four electric lamps suspended near Woodlawn Cemetery. The crime wasn’t discovered until a car got caught in the wires. No one was hurt but the perpetrators were still at large. There was also a large willow wicker chair awaiting its owner at police headquarters, the result of a not-particularly-clever Hallowe’en prank.

Have a Safe and Happy Hallowe’en!

 

Rena Rockwell’s Fight For Equal Pay

By Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator

“I am unable to understand why a woman performing exactly the same duties as a man should receive less compensation for her services,” wrote New York Governor Alfred Smith when he signed the Teachers’ Salary Act in 1924, which was supposed to eliminate pay discrimination due to gender.  Women had just earned the right to vote and equality was a hot topic.  Unfortunately, despite this new mandate, pay equality didn’t come immediately for all female teachers.  Rena Rockwell, a teacher and head of the history department at the Elmira Free Academy, made it her personal mission to change that. 

In the 1920s, Rockwell was the president of the Elmira Teachers’ Association and used her post to advocate for equal pay legislation.  In May 1924, Rockwell went to Albany advocating for the equal pay act.  She expressed her embarrassment that Elmira was the only place to send both a mayor and a female Board of Education member to fight against the bill.  Still, the bill passed and Rockwell said, “The pleasure of hearing those men who have blustered so often in state association meetings and other gatherings of teachers, humiliated by the governor’s searching questions, was worth the trip to Albany.”  She also noted, “we in Elmira are not to reap immediate fruits of victory in any increased pay.  But there is a much bigger victory than the financial, the victory of principle.  It remains for us all to reap fruits according as we sow… Remember that this is part of the whole movement for the rights of women.  We have the suffrage: much else we have not yet.”

True to her word, Rockwell continued her battle for the “fruits of victory” for Elmira teachers.  She took the Board of Education to court and on June 9, 1925, New York Supreme Court Justice Leon C. Rhodes decided that Rockwell was entitled to pay equal to that of her male colleague Ralph S. Austin.  Rockwell asked the court to force the Board to increase her annual pay from $2,000 to $2,100.  Austin received $2,100 even though he did the same work as Rockwell (he arguably did less than her since she was also head of the department).  The Board of Education claimed, however, that the Legislature had no right to decide the details of teacher contracts and that pay raises would hurt the city’s budget.  Judge Rhodes decided in Rockwell’s favor and ordered she be paid the $2,100 salary and back pay.

On June 10, the Elmira Board of Education voted unanimously to appeal the decision.  The Appellate Division sided with the Board of Education. Rockwell was ordered to pay $153.30 to cover court costs.

Despite setbacks in Elmira, Rockwell’s work inspired other cases, particularly in Syracuse.  In 1927, Cornelia Moses, a Syracuse teacher, became the center of a similar pay case and was able to close the pay gap, but again, the appeals court found that there still could be differences in pay as long as gender wasn’t the only reason for the discrepancy. 

Rockwell still continued her work advocating for teachers and in October 1926 she was elected president of the Teachers’ Welfare League of New York State.  She continued to be a driving force in state and local politics for the rest of her life.  When she died in October 1947, she was hailed for her political action.  The Elmira Star-Gazette wrote, “No one knew better than she that many disagreed with her opinions; but everyone respected her faithful, spirited adherence to what she believed to be right.”

Puttin’ on the Ritz

by Rachel Dworkin, archivist

Most people have a pretty good idea of what a 1920s-era flapper looked like, but do you know how a fashionable young man of the period would have looked?  Using examples from Sears catalogs, here’s a look at what the well-dressed man of the 1920s was wearing from the top of his hat to the tips of his shoes.

Hats – During the 1920s, no respectable person would be seen out of doors without a hat, and that included men.  Different types of men wore different types of hats.  Laborers wore the newsboy, professionals wore fedoras or homburgs, and summer sportsmen wore boaters.  For more information on men’s hats, check out this blog post for details.

All sorts of hats, 1929

Hair – A man’s hair was to be worn 5” to 7” long and was slicked down and back.  The sides and back were kept short.  To keep hair in place, not to mention looking glossy, men used hair oils like Hair Silk, Glostora or Brilliantine.  While the oils helped keep hair smooth and flat, they often stained hats, pillows, chair backs, and pretty much anything hair came in contact with.  

A selection of products to make your hair extra slick

Facial hair – These days the perma-stubble look is in, but in the 1920s, your average young man would have been clean-shaven.  A mustache, maybe, but anything more would be pushing it.  New technologies like safety razors made shaving a breeze.  For more on the history of shaving, check out this blog post.

Ties – The bowtie had been the preferred neckwear of the 1800s, but by the 1920s it was losing ground to the necktie.  Bowties, especially in vibrant colors and patterns, remained popular as summer wear, but for the rest of the year the necktie was king.  Bright colors and patterns were in, especially stripes.  Since most people wore them with three piece suits, ties tended to be short.  For formal wear, white bowties remained a must. 

I wish this ad was in color

Shirts and Collars – Victorian shirt collars were detached for easy washing and so starched they could stand on their own.  The 1920s were a period of transition between this older style and the attached, soft collars we have today. 

Note the mix of shirts with and without collars.

A selection of detachable collars, cuff links and garters for keeping up your socks.

Suits – For a gentleman out on the town, a three piece suit was a must.  Most older business men tended to wear double-breasted suits with slightly cinched-in waists and hip-length jackets.  Fashionable young men preferred the so-called Ivy League or Cake Eater suits which were single-breasted with narrow lapels, longer jackets and very wide pants.  Conservative dressers preferred darker, solid colors like Navy blue, black, dark gray or brown.  They younger set went in for lighter shades with stripes, chevrons and twills.  In the summer, less conservative types might often forgo the vest under the jacket. 

Fashionable young Cake Eaters and that one weird kid in a double-breasted suit

Shoes – The lace-up book had been the style for decades.  While they remained popular with workers and conservative types, the Oxford shoe became the style of the day.  Most were either brown or black, but two-toned shoes became popular in more casual settings.   

An assortment of Oxford shoes.

If you’d like to learn more about fashion in the 1920s, be sure to come to today’s Out to Lunch Lecture on life in the 1920s. 

The Students Tell All

by the Elmira College "Doing Public History" Class

Time flew over our six weeks taking the course and our four weeks here at the museum. At the beginning of this experience, many of us were uncertain of what “public history” would entail and how you would “do it”. Reading The Modern Temper by Lynn Dumenil before starting our exhibit gave us a good background on the 1920s but was dry and strained the brain. To also give us the tools to build the exhibit, we were assigned interpretive talks, where we picked an object and used it to tell a story.

These prior discussions helped prepare us for our time at the museum, but many of us did not have experience with primary source research. While some of us were able to stay with our original topics, others had trouble even finding one, due to the lack of resources and interest level of the students. Once we all found a topic that suited us, looking through the archives became an enjoyable objective. We found information by looking through old documents, pictures, and artifacts. Some interesting examples were playbills from theatres around Elmira, old police journals, Iszard’s blueprints, cooking recipes, and letters from the Federation Farm.

Writing our research paper based off our topics gave us a helpful guideline for creating the exhibit, although the Chicago citation style was difficult to learn. The most trying part of the entire class was attempting to organize ourselves into groups for the exhibit. Pairing the individual topics together was difficult to conceptualize since our topics varied so much. Once in groups though, it was easy to get our ideas down but challenging to refine them making sure it was at an 8th grade reading level. During this time, it was common to hear exasperated commentary such as “What do 8th graders even know?!”

When we had finished our section labels, we moved on to attempting to write our overall exhibit label. Here we struggled with finding an overall conceptual idea for our exhibit, which would bring everything together. We had many ideas but making them coherent on beautiful Friday morning proved almost impossible.

With that dark day behind us, we moved on to a very important part of exhibit planning: choosing objects. It was more difficult for the conceptual groups to find relevant materials for their image captions, than it was for other groups. But having the previous research experience helped us identify the objects we wanted to include.

This process has definitely been a journey, both in terms of history and learning the behind the scenes workings of a history museum. We created a learning experience that will last longer than the typical college term paper and will be seen more than just our professors.

We are excited to share our research and hard work with you!
See their finished product here: http://cchsonlineexhibits.wix.com/1920selmira