This Is How Sad A 1920s Halloween Bucket Was

Interestingly, Halloween is a pretty new phenomenon. In terms of the well-known door-knock, candy-handover practice, it seems to have emerged in the U.S. in the late 1920s, with it being referenced specifically in a newspaper article from 1928.

What, though, were people putting in your bucket back then? After all, candy chemistry has made leaps and bounds in the last century, and a modern trick-or-treater’s haul would fire a 1928 child’s mind straight out of his body and into a diabetic nirvana. The article above already gives us an idea at how dire even the fullest bag would be, given that it immediately cites apples and peanuts. I’d like to see you give an apple or a bag of Planters unsalted to a 2024 child while keeping all your windows intact.

Cookies, sure, those are tasty, and people weren’t as worried about food safety or ease of poisoning back then, so they were happy to take it. But what could you expect to receive candy-wise? Twix, Snickers, Peanut M&M’s, these were all twinkles in a confectioner’s eye. For god’s sake, 1928 was still over a decade before they came up with the Almond Joy, a candy that’s regifted to grandmothers or unceremoniously side-armed into a creekbed.

With the help of candy historians, we can imagine what sticky treasures might spill from your pillowcase at the end of the night in October 1928, and it’s not pretty:

• 1847: Necco Wafers, a candy that’s basically chalk dusted in confectioner’s sugar.
• 1864: Cella’s Chocolate Covered Cherries, a candy entirely too sexual to in good faith give to children.
• 1880: Candy Corn, which never doesn’t feel like you’re eating a gnome’s sweet little tooth.
• 1893: Good & Plenty, which are coated in pink and white candy to fool you into finding out they’re filled with black licorice.
• 1896: Tootsie Rolls, which, credit where credit’s due, held up better than most other things on this list.
• 1900: Hershey Chocolate Bar, which is good, but the fact that Hershey just showed up and we only have 28 years left is dark.
• 1906: Hershey’s Kisses, as we start to enter the age of Palatable Candy.
• 1908: Hershey’s with Almonds, because apparently going “almonds?” takes eight years.
• 1912: Life Savers, but only the mint ones you usually get in a dish by the door of a Chinese restaurant.
• 1912: Goo Goo Clusters, something that sounds like a galaxy where only babies live, but is apparently milk chocolate, caramel, marshmallow and peanuts, and honestly, sound good as hell.
• 1914: We get some Actual Candy Bars, but not good ones. They’re still the kind of thing you find in your aunt’s old roll-top desk, like Heath bars, Clark bars, Charleston Chew, Baby Ruths and whatever an O! Henry is.
• 1920: Jujyfruits, a candy made famous by Elaine from Seinfeld for being dogshit.
• 1923: Mounds, the number one candy bar that your mom asks if you’re going to eat.
• 1923: Milky Way, the first candy on this list that I’ve ever happily purchased.

Funnily enough, it was specifically 1928 that maybe the most Halloween-coded candy of all, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, originally hit the scene. 

Coincidence? Maybe. Or they finally tipped the scales by actually being something worth knocking on doors for.