Thanksgiving Ragamuffin, Brooklyn NY 1920's

NO, THIS IS NOT HALLOWEEN, IT IS THANKSGIVING CELEBRATED BY MY RELATIVES IN BROOKLYN, NY DURING THE 1920's. www.gowanuslounge.com/2008/11/26/urban-environmentalist-n..."at least the early part of the twentieth century until about the early 1960’s, Brooklyn children celebrated a curious custom on Thanksgiving morning. While Mom was cooking the turkey, kids would put on old, over-size, ragged clothes—usually belonging to one of their parents— and go door to door with small hands outstretched begging for pennies, apples or candy chanting “Anything for Thanksgiving?” The kids sometimes used burnt cork on their faces or wore masks to make themselves look more like ragamuffins while begging for change (see 1911 Thanksgiving photo, “Scrambling for Pennies,” in the G.C. Bain collection). The tradition may have had European roots—and Brooklyn, with a large European immigrant population, became a major borough for a custom that seemed largely limited to New York City neighborhoods and mostly unknown outside of the city. In Betty Smith’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” for instance, Francie participates in the Thanksgiving tradition in Williamsburg, donning a mask...The parade lives on in Bay Ridge’s annual Ragamuffin Parade, now held in late September or early October. Indeed, the tradition of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade may hark back to the European tradition of ragamuffin parades. The custom died out after trick-or-treating became more popular after World War II, though it still existed into the 1960’s in some neighborhoods."