Saturday Evening Post "Halloween" covers, 1930-1960

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   It appears that the famous "trick-or-treaters" cover illustration was 1958 (not 1938), or possibly 1951.  Both clearly illustrate the custom.  From about 1940, the page three table of contents included a cover description.
   I checked covers for the last week of October and the first week of November.


25 October 1930
   "HALLOWE'EN" is at the bottom, surrounded by two black cats.  There are two young children, and one is dressed in a clown suit.  A very young girl looks on, with her forefinger in her mouth.  The other of the two children carries a broom.  Neither carries a bag for any goodies, however.

29 October 1932
   Seated is a beautiful young woman, who is dressed for a party.  On her lap is a jack-o-latern.  She adjusts the ball at the top of jack's hat.  Oh, baby.

3 November 1934
   There is a young girl in a Heidi costume and a young boy in a clown costume.  The boy is sticking his hand into the jack-o-lantern.  A fence post is in the distance.  It is not clear if they are carrying with them bags for treat-or-treating.

2 November 1935
   Two young children are wearing sheets and one holds a jack-o-lantern.  There is a circle above them, with a profile of two cats fighting on a fence.  Again, it is not clear that they have any bags for trick-or-treating.

30 October 1937
   Two young girls gaze up at a jack-o-lantern.  Again, it is not clear that they are trick-or-treaters.

3 November 1951
THIS WEEK'S COVER
   What a mean man to scare these cunning tykes so that they may be hysterical al night.  Most men don't do this; they either haven't the imagination or are afraid the tykes will return with reinforcements and make _them_ hysterical all night.  Once there was an old cranks who, when some tots screamed "Tricks or treats!" opened his door, brandished a cudgel and said, "Trick.  Want to make something of it?"  The tots retreated, but their father, who was accompanying them at a distance to see that they did nothing wrong, rallied them with a pepe talk and a couple of ideas out of his misspent youth--and next Halloween, the old crank handed out candy.  Halloween frolic should always have adult supervision.

1 November 1958
THE COVER
   It's Halloween again--batten down the hatches and everything else, folks.  In artist John Falter's dreadful scene, Mrs. Oldwitch and five little creeps are out on a shakedown cruise.  Tricks or treats!--so householders stock up on candy, and expeditions that get around early before the supplies peter out amass enough loot to do their stomachs no good at all.  In the bad old days, Halloweening was a livelier art; do you recall, grandpa, the night you rigged up lawyer Grump's garden hose so it was aimed at his front door, rang his bell, turned on the water, and he got it right in the beezer?  Do you recall that when you returned to swipe his gate, he ran out and began flailing around recklessly with a buggy whip?  The good new days inflict less pain on all concerned.