Curio Cabinet

What do you get when you mix juvenile delinquency, an economy in shambles and a spooky holiday? Haunted houses, of course! With Halloween approaching, it’s worth taking some time to learn about how these ubiquitous attractions came to be. Modern haunted houses often use elaborate makeup and lighting effects to help scare guests, but their foundations were laid a long time ago, starting with Madame Tussaud. Known for her impeccable recreations of real-life figures made of wax, Tussaud came up with one of the first horror-themed attractions when she created the Chamber of Horrors. Filled with historical figures like Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the Chamber featured decapitated heads in vivid recreations of high-profile executions. The popular exhibit helped awaken an appetite for the macabre that stuck around through the Victorian Era, all the way to the Great Depression.
 
It was during this time of economic hardship in the U.S .that improvised haunted houses came to be. Back then, Halloween was not the jolly, family-friendly candyfest it is today. Rather, it was a night when children and adolescents would wreak havoc with cruel pranks, leading to harassment and property damage. To distract the youth from their impolite inclinations, neighborhoods started coming together to create haunted house attractions in their homes featuring handmade decorations. But it wasn’t until Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion opened in 1969 that haunted houses took off as an industry. The immensely popular ride featured both high-tech animatronics and traditional illusions like the “Pepper’s ghost” which used lights and mirrors to create see-through, three-dimensional figures. Other theme parks quickly started creating their own dedicated haunted house attractions. These were, and still tend to be, fairly low-tech in comparison, relying on costumed actors and a much more gruesome ambiance than Disneyland’s, but it’s an industry that has been thriving for decades nevertheless. In fact, the haunted house industry is worth around $300 million today. With some popular locations charging $40 to $50 per person, the first fright you get may be at the ticket booth!

 
[Image description: Workers stand outside a haunted house attraction in Tillamook Bay, Oregon.] Credit & copyright: Petty Officer 3rd Class Nate Littlejohn, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

If you see him, you’re about to witness a deadly calamity…or you’ll be the star of a small-town festival. Mothman is nearly as famous as bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster today, but how did an obscure local myth in a sleepy West Virginia town become an internationally recognized cryptid, or modern mythological animal? The very first Mothman sighting dates back to 1966, when two gravediggers in Clendenin, West Virginia, claimed to have seen a large, black, winged creature swooping above them. Then, a few days later in the nearby town of Point Pleasant, two couples driving around in the middle of the night claimed that they were followed by a creature matching a similar description. While accounts vary, Mothman is usually described as being between 7 to 10 feet tall with enormous wings and glowing, red eyes. He puts his wings to good use, as he can supposedly fly at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour.
 
The cryptid might have stayed an obscure piece of folklore after these sightings were it not for a catastrophe that struck Point Pleasant the following year. In 1967, several locals claimed to have seen a strange figure—now believed to have been Mothman—either sitting or flying around at the top of Silver Bridge, which spanned the Ohio River. Not long after that sighting, the bridge collapsed due to a fractured suspension chain, leading to the deaths of 46 people. The event led people to believe that Mothman was a supernatural harbinger of disaster. It even inspired the 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies, by John Keel, and led to a feature film starring Richard Gere in 2002. Today, Mothman is the unofficial mascot of Point Pleasant. The town erected a 12-foot statue of the local cryptid, there’s a Mothman museum and shop in town, and even a Mothman festival every fall. That’s a lot of love for a supposedly scary cryptid.

 
[Image description: A board of concept art from The Mothman Prophecies at the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant, West Virginia] Credit & copyright: Mo Kaiwen, Katherine Bowman, Wikimedia Commons

Anyone alive at the time would agree: 1347 wasn’t a good year. Rather, it was the year that The Black Death, also known as the Bubonic Plague or Black Plague, was first recorded. With a death toll between 75 to 200 million, The Black Death was one of the deadliest recorded events in human history. Its spread caused years of political turmoil, unjust persecutions, and general misery in Western Eurasia and North Africa.
 
Today, the word “plague” is often used interchangeably with “pandemic.” But for a long period of history, “plague” usually referenced three specific infectious diseases caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria. The most common of these is bubonic plague, which causes swollen lymph nodes, or "buboes.” Despite a consistent rumor that The Black Death was spread by rats, it was most often spread by fleas. Rats were the ones who harbored the bacteria in their bloodstreams, though, and brought the fleas close to humans. Once someone was infected, the bacteria then spread from person to person. Bubonic plague causes a host of terrible symptoms, including chills and fever in early stages, and hemorrhaging lymph nodes and gangrene in later stages. Tissue killed by gangrene turns black, hence the Black Death moniker. Although bubonic plague has not been fully eradicated, it is considered rare today, and it can be successfully treated with antibiotics.
 
Unfortunately, when The Black Death was first reported in Crimea in 1347, living conditions were poor for the majority of people, and humanity was over 300 years away from discovering bacteria. The pandemic began in earnest when Kipchak khan Janibeg, ruler of a nomadic empire called The Golden Horde, lost most of his army to an outbreak of bubonic plague while he was attacking the trading port of Kaffa, in Crimea. Rather than retreat, he launched the bodies of his soldiers into Kaffa to infect those he was fighting. From Kaffa, fleas from the soldiers’ bodies spread through the Mediterranean via trade ships, infecting large cities like Sicily and then spreading throughout Europe. Clearly, biological warfare never leads to anything positive.
 
In the years following the initial outbreaks, large cities and towns were hit hardest by The Black Death. This was mainly due to massive overcrowding, which allowed just a few fleas to infect entire households. Rats were also more common in populated areas. With so many people falling ill, normalcy in many parts of Europe collapsed. A shortage of laborers left farmland uncultivated, which not only led to food shortages but threatened the entire economy, since farmers rarely owned the land they worked on, and instead “paid” to remain there through their labor. The Black Death forced landowners to pay their tenants in money, and some other types of laborers saw increases in their pay, though their living conditions hardly improved. Another problem facing populated areas was how to deal with the bodies of plague victims. Cities and towns took to paying peasants to cart the bodies away daily, usually to mass graves in the surrounding countryside.
 
No one had any way of knowing what caused The Black Death. As such, wild theories abounded. Some blamed the pandemic on “bad air”, also known as miasma. Others believed it was a supernatural punishment. Unfortunately, some theories evolved into full-blown conspiracies, with deadly consequences. Anti-semitism was already rampant in many parts of Europe by the time The Black Death struck, leading to accusations that Jewish people had poisoned well water to spread disease. Several massacres of Jewish people, known as The Black Death Persecutions, followed. The deadliest of these took place on February 14, 1349, when 2,000 Jews were burned to death in Strasbourg, France.
 
No treatments existed for the bubonic plague at the time of The Black Death, but people were desperate for medicine. Plague doctors, with their bird-like masks, became an enduring symbol of the pandemic. The “beaks” of these masks were filled with herbs to prevent the “doctors” from inhaling bad air. Many plague doctors had little to no medical training, and the treatments they offered, such as bloodletting, were not effective.
 
The Black Death killed nearly one third of Europe’s population, including some of its royalty, such as King Alfonso XI of Castile and King Edward III’s daughter, Joan. It was only natural that the pandemic left an indelible cultural mark. For years afterward, death was a common theme in literature, poetry, and visual art throughout Europe. Even today, nearly 700 years later, The Black Death is still referenced in pop culture and comparisons are drawn between it and modern pandemics. We’re pretty confident that COVID-19 won’t reach this level, though.

 
[Image description: An illustration from 1353 showing people carrying and burying caskets of plague victims.] Credit & copyright: Pierart dou Tielt, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain