Northern New Jersey Chapter
Next Monthly Program
Victorian Society in America
Northern New Jersey Chapter
VSA-NNJ meets monthly from September to June for lectures and events
related to 19th Century history, usually on the third Monday of the month.
The Divination Game:
Romantic Tomfoolery at the Victorian Halloween Party
presented by Ava Caridad
Monday, October 19, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Montclair Women's Club
82 Union Street, Montclair NJ
This venue is handicap accessible. Parking is available behind the building and on the street. Light refreshments, coffee and tea will be served. The program is free for members, and $10 for guests.
For those of us who came of age in the 20th and 21st centuries, Halloween is a time of carving jack o’lanterns, parades and parties at school, horror movies on TV and wandering the streets dressed as ghouls or favorite pop culture characters, searching for candy.
Nineteenth century revelers, however, did things differently. Instead of going door-to-door, Victorians threw lavish parties full of intricate rituals. High-society ladies prided themselves on their creativity, crafting detailed invitations, unique costumes and glamorous entrances.
While there were still costumes, tricks, games and spooky stories, the main focus of the night was matchmaking. Hopeful singles would come together to divine their future spouses through poems, faces in mirrors or by eating the Irish bread Barmbrack, which had baked-in tokens used to predict upcoming events.
Join us as we explore the Halloween food, fun, flirting and phantasmagorical frolics of the Victorian era.
Ava Caridad holds a Masters Degree in 19th Century American Literature from Rutgers University. She was the Editor of The Bloomfield Historian: Official Newsletter of The Historical Society of Bloomfield, NJ for more than 15 years and is a contributing book reviewer for The Edgar Allan Poe Review from Penn State University Press.
For more information, please contact
973-886-9956
Visit us online at www.vsa-nnj.com