Look at these gorgeous vintage Halloween pictures from 1972!

A gorgeous vintage Halloween picture from the 1970s featuring some Ben Cooper costumes as well as a bride, a bride, a jester, a sheriff and a girl dressed up in Chinese garb.

I have slowly been acquiring 35 mm slides from the 1960-90s. Specifically, anything interesting or beautiful that reflects the growing up or coming of age of Generation X. This latest purchase is one of my favorites. These images are so rich with color; very saturated, actually, which is one of the hallmarks of Ektachrome E100VS.

Gorgeous Vintage Halloween Pictures

Vintage Halloween Picture from 1972 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I hope you enjoy them because I bought them for you — for anyone looking to find herself in someone else’s archive. I have yet to see myself, but I know one day I will. I’ll be sifting through my secret Internet resources and there’ll I’ll be — an image of someone I once was and never want to forget.

I treasure such records so much. They’re the archives of Generation X. Documentary evidence of our past. Our stories, letters, reports, accounts and photographs illustrate facts that we can use to understand and interpret our time and place in the world.

Earlier this summer, I wrote about plans to feature all the students from Syracuse who were killed in the 1988 crash of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Most of them were Gen-Xers. Someone left an ignorant comment on that post: “This is ghoulish and selfish,” they wrote. Here was my response:

…I think the families of the victims would disagree with you. Syracuse University has a massive archive of all the passengers who died. Boxes and boxes of their stuff. Every student is remembered with an online memorial including biography and photographs…it’s important to remember the victims of terrorism. It’s important that my generation, especially, remember that people our age – when we were their age – were killed.”

Generation X Archive

Part of my work on this blog involves assessing the records of Generation X. They don’t all have enduring value, but many do including the biographies and pictures of those beloved Syracuse students. Their deaths were historic and they have context today because the evil bastards who killed them are the same evil bastards who are killing us today.

Collecting and organizing this makeshift Generation X archive makes me happy. When I find something as unique and special as these Ektachrome slides, I want to preserve if forever and share it with the whole world. It’s evidence of the society in which we lived, some 40 years before the turn of the century.

Finally, I do my best to publicize this blog as a kind of outreach to help people find and even understand the information they need. A guy named Willy wrote to me recently:

Hey whats up? I’m Willy…Your blog is so damn on point with all my life issues, from being born in 1967, w/divorced parents, drug and alcohol abuse, neglect, broken home, and the current mess my life is in. Seen 9 shrinks dealing with my issues, and today your page helped me more with my ptsd than trying to get into another stupid shrink appointment. Cant wait to read more on this topic.

Willy

I wrote him back,

Greetings Willy,

…None of your life issues or their consequences are your imagination. It’s all real. The PTSD from the broken home, the drugs, the abuses — all the things that stole your childhood were all real.

You know what I’ve been telling myself the last few years? It doesn’t matter that the people who didn’t love me didn’t love me. What matters is that I loved them…Thank you for writing…

I hope these gorgeous vintage Halloween pictures brighten your autumn day!

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