> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Early Photographs of a Child Getting Spooked by Bogeymen - URL: https://hyperallergic.com/early-photographs-of-a-child-getting-spooked-by-bogeymen/ - Published: 2013-08-15T19:03:07.000Z - Updated: 2025-11-24T16:45:10.000Z - Description: What child doesn't dread the unseen monsters potentially lurking under the bed, or stalking around the shadows outside the window? These photographs from the 1920s realize this terror in a series of comical and upsetting staged horror. - Author: Allison Meier - Tags: Art, Photography, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:59 (2012, 2013, part 2) ![1920s Bogeyman Photographs](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/08/boogeymanphotographs03.jpg) 1920s Bogeyman Stereoview (all images via pkgeneralstore/eBay) What child doesn’t dread the unseen monsters potentially lurking under the bed, or stalking around the shadows outside the window? These photographs from the 1920s realize this terror in a series of comical and upsetting staged horrors. The series of 15 photographs turned up [on eBay](http://www.ebay.ca/itm/1920s-BOOGIE-MAN-child-goblins-bedtime-DROP-CARD-series-of-15-stereoviews-/400496289009?ref=hyperallergic.com) recently, stereoviews that you could once glimpse in 3D with a coin-operated drop card machine. According[ to the listing](http://www.ebay.ca/itm/1920s-BOOGIE-MAN-child-goblins-bedtime-DROP-CARD-series-of-15-stereoviews-/400496289009?ref=hyperallergic.com), on the back of one is written: “The Goblins will get you if you don’t watch out.” And indeed, the poor girl who fitfully sleeps (or in one, randomly, prays) with a series of papier-mâché-masked bogeymen after being sheperded to her bed beneath a worn “God Bless Our Home” painting does meet an unfortunate end. ![John_Henry_Fuseli_-_The_Nightmare](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/08/john_henry_fuseli_-_the_nightmare.jpg) Henry Fuseli, “The Nightmare” (1781) (image via Wikimedia) The story behind why these were made isn’t clear. Would you take your children to the stereoscopic viewer to warn them of the demons that will haunt them if they aren’t good (the traditional threat of the bogeyman)? Were they for adults to reminisce about their own childhood fears? Either way, there’s something amazingly creepy about them, from a sad-faced bogeyman suddenly looming in the window like the horse peaking his head out of the curtains in Henry Fuseli’s 1781 [“The Nightmare”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FNightmare?ref=hyperallergic.com), to a bulbous-headed goblin grinning up from the floor. Apologies in advance if any of them lumber into your dreams. Despite the widespread youthful panic the bogeyman instills, he’s not too common in art, although there are some frightening exceptions. Duane Michals created an [unsettling bogeyman sequence ](http://www.anorak.co.uk/345723/the-consumer/duane-michals-was-the-bogeyman.html/?ref=hyperallergic.com)in 1973 where an ominous trench coat on a stand turns out to contain a sinister creature after all. Back in the late 1700s, Goya even etched a shrouded figure approaching a mother and her children in [“Que viene el coco (Here Comes the Bogey-Man).”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Goya%5F-%5FQue%5Fviene%5Fel%5Fcoco%5F%28Here%5FComes%5Fthe%5FBogey-Man%29.jpg?ref=hyperallergic.com) Yet the sequence of the 1920s photographs has a haunting, DIY approach all its own. Here are the photographs of the nightmare: ![1920s Bogeyman Photographs](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/08/boogeymanphotographs05.jpg) Going to bed ![1920s Bogeyman Photographs](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/08/boogeymanphotographs04.jpg) A monster peaks through the curtains ![1920s Bogeyman Photographs](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/08/boogeymanphotographs01.jpg) Haunting over the headboard ![1920s Bogeyman Photographs](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/08/boogeymanphotographs02.jpg) A gremlin under the bed ![1920s Bogeyman Photographs](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/08/boogeymanphotographs07.jpg) A devilish monster bringing nightmares ![1920s Bogeyman Photographs](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/08/boogeymanphotographs09.jpg) A furry creature creeping over sleep ![1920s Bogeyman Photographs](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/08/boogeymanphotographs10.jpg) Bedside bogeyman ![1920s Bogeyman Photographs](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/08/boogeymanphotographs11.jpg) Some nighttime prayers with the bogeyman? ![1920s Bogeyman Photographs](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/08/boogeymanphotographs12.jpg) Prowling simian bogeyman ![1920s Bogeyman Photographs](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/08/boogeymanphotographs08.jpg) Carried from bed by a demon ![1920s Bogeyman Photographs](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/08/boogeymanphotographs06.jpg) And the girl has vanished! Taken by the bogeymen? *h/t* [*The Hysterical Society*](http://thehystericalsociety.tumblr.com/post/49679893044/boogeymen-part-of-a-series-of-eerie-stereoviews?ref=hyperallergic.com)