In early 20th century America, Thanksgiving looked a lot more like Halloween, and if that sounds like a lot of fun to you, then I’m not the only one.
Now, I enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving with the 3-F’s (Family, Food, and Football) as much as anybody, but there’s something to be said for how America celebrated this holiday at the turn of the previous century.
The Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people sat down to feast together in 1621, which many consider the first “Thanksgiving.” In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation that established a nationwide Thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November. Lincoln hoped that this national day of gratitude would offer Americans a sense of comfort and unity during such a turbulent time. This marked the first time the nation had an official annual Thanksgiving. While individual states resisted, and observed it in their own way, Lincoln’s proclamation set the tradition, and over the years the whole country fell in line.
In 1939, as the country was pulling out of The Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up a week, hoping to boost retail sales by giving shoppers more time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not all the states got on board with this, with many sticking with the traditional last-Thursday celebration. Two years later, in 1941, Congress passed a law making Thanksgiving an official holiday and set it on the fourth Thursday of November.
That’s a fairly straightforward, albeit brief, summary of the origins of Thanksgiving, but there was an unusual wrinkle to this historical narrative.
Seven years after President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, it is believed that the first ‘Ragamuffin Day’ (also known as ‘Beggar’s Day’) took place in New York on Thanksgiving. The origins of this tradition sprang from European ‘mummers’ plays,’ which were folk plays performed by amateur actors in the streets.
On this day in America, children would dress in the style of the homeless, wearing rags and acting the part of a beggar. The would go door to door, knock, and ask whoever answered, “Anything for Thanksgiving?” They would be rewarded with candies, fruits or even pennies. While pennies are almost worthless to kids today, a century ago there actually worth something. This was a time when you could actually buy something with penny. There are probably many readers who recall being able to purchase a piece of candy for one cent.
Yes, Gen Zers, ‘penny candy’ was a real thing.
In the early 1900s, so many youngsters in New York City dressed as poor people that Thanksgiving Day took on a nickname: Ragamuffin Day.
Later still, children would dress up in various other costumes, much like they would do on Halloween. Popular get-ups at the time included heads of parrots and other birds and animals, as well as masks of prominent people and political leaders. Some donned soft, ghostly, painted veils made of gauzy mesh, or false faces crafted from papier-mache.
There were even Ragamuffin parades, sometimes called ‘fantastics’ because of the costumes, that can be dated as far back as 1891, when the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade was decades in the future.
Although the tradition was especially strong in New York, the Raggamuffin celebrations were seen all around the country in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago.
So many people participated in these events that according to the Los Angeles Times of Nov. 21, 1897, Thanksgiving was the busiest time of the year for the manufacturers of and dealers in masks and false faces.
Another newspaper in 1911 reported that fantastically garbed youngsters and their elders were on every corner of the city, with revelers running rampant, throwing of confetti and flour on pedestrians.
Of course, not everyone was thrilled with Ragamuffin Day. Although the festivities were relatively harmless, there were widespread reports of vandalism and bonfires which concerned business owners, in particular. During the height of the Great Depression, the sight of children masquerading as homeless street urchins was found to be in bad taste. The New York Times began running an increasing number of articles and op-eds calling for an end to the tradition. In 1930, the city’s Superintendent of Schools William J. O’Shea, spoke about the problem, saying, “many citizens complain that on Thanksgiving Day they are annoyed by children dressed as ragamuffins, who beg for money and gifts.”
In another form of deterrence, in 1937, the Madison Square Boys Club started hosting an annual parade of its own, one that was comparatively wholesome. Their slogan, “American boys don’t beg,” spoke to the grim economic climate of the times, as well as a growing sense of nationalism.
In 1956, New Yorkers celebrated the last recorded Ragamuffin Day in the Bronx. By that point, Halloween was well established, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade gave Manhattanites a more regulated way to dress up and act out. Today, Ragamuffin Day, like penny candy, is nothing but a memory.
So, if your doorbell rings on Thanksgiving night, and someone wearing a costume asks, “Anything for Thanksgiving?” you either set your clock back an entire month, or you just entered the Twilight Zone.
Published 11/25/25