The Bogie Book

The Bogie book was a Hallowe'en party manual published annually by the Dennison Manufacturing Company about 1909 until 1935.  It gave suggestions on how to host a successful Hallowe'en themed events including adult and children's parties, dinner dances, club meetings, bridge evenings and other functions.  Much of the manual gave instructions for creating decorations and costumes out of Dennison's many crepe and card stock paper products.  What a brilliant marketing ploy!

Halloween parties became increasingly popular in the early part of the 20th century, due largely to Dennison's commercialization of Halloween through the Bogie Book.  In addition to decorations and costumes mentioned earlier,  other content included stunts, games, invitations, favors, menus, themes, and ghost stories .  Some books also had ideas for Thanksgiving.  If you wish to learn more or even read some original Bogie Books, the Food Historian has an excellent blog.  Also Framingham History Center has an interesting slide show about the Dennison Manufacturing Company.  The company has since merged with Avery and moved to California.

Why this deep dive into the Bogie Book?  I have committed to do the Manitou Springs Heritage Center skeleton window in 2025 in a Bogie Book theme and am learning all I can about the books.  My favorite thing I have gleaned so far is how to dress a pack of cigarettes up as a Halloween prize or favor.  Very few of Dennison Paper products have survived into the present day and what has is viciously expensive.  So I will have to recreate from scratch.  There are a few good resources out there such as this video from Nick Alcaraz at Peculiar food.  As the books are in the public domain, copyright is not an issue.

I have a lot of studying to do as well as getting creative.  Luckily crepe paper can still be found as well as card stock. Wish me luck!