Alan Mays' photos with the keyword: cauldrons

A Halloween postcard addressed on the other side to "Miss Bertha Duncan, Cresson, Penna.," and postmarked in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on October 24, 1912. Handwritten message: "This card is a little soon for Halloween but I will send it anyhow. Aquilla." Printed on the back: "Printed in Saxony 0624." In a candlelit room at midnight on Halloween, a young woman gazes into a mirror through the steam from a cauldron so she can catch a glimpse of her future husband. For other Halloween postcards with a mirror-gazing theme, see: -- Halloween Greeting—I Gaze in the Mirror My Future There to See -- Halloween Greetings—Look Out for Ghosts -- Wishing You a Lucky Halloween

Postmarked Roseburg, Oregon, Oct. 25, 1916.

"Halloween Greetings. Boil and bubble, toil and trouble."

The cover of a booklet advertising Witchal, a witch-hazel extract manufactured by the E. E. Dickinson Co. and used medicinally as an astringent.

A strange and inexplicable New Year greeting! An old woman is tossing a young boy, identified as "1889" across his back, into a steaming kettle of soup that she's cooking over a hot fire. The legs of her previous victim are barely visible at the edge of the kettle. Am I missing something here? Is there a literary allusion or proverb or something else that might explain this? Otherwise, it seems a rather cruel and violent way to greet the New Year. In any case, after initially believing this to be a calling card, I finally discovered that it's number 5 ("Old woman holding boy 1889 over soup tureen") in a series of 50 "New Years 1890" cigarette cards issued by Kinney Tobacco Co. See Kinney New Years 1890 Cards - N227 for additonal information about the card series. By the way, some of the other cards in this series also show strange and unsettling scenes: No. 19 - Boy pushing huge snowball over figure of 1889. No. 20 - Duelist 1890 standing over fallen 1889. No. 36 - Boy 1890 skates round 1889 falling through ice. No. 38 - Whale swallowing 1889, 1890 steps on to floating globe. No. 49 - Sun as spider devouring insect 1889, insect 1890 flies away. A checklist for the card series and illustrations of each card are available at Kinney New Years 1890 Cards - N227 .

A vintage Halloween party invitation. "Come to a Hallowe'en party at the home of Alma Groff on Tues. eve., Oct. 31, from 8:30 to xxxx o'clock."