New York state law, which made it a crime to wear a mask or costume only while attempting to commit another crime. The statute was based on an older law that was enacted in 1845 as a way to prosecute upstate New York farmers who rioted and fought off tax collectors while dressed in faux–Native American garments. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the masquerade law was often used as an imprecise but effective method of prosecuting inverts. (Interestingly, the law would be revived again some one hundred years later to prosecute Occupy Wall Street protesters.)
