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Halloween History: About

Halloween History

Halloween is observed each year on October 31st; the same day that the Celtic festival of Samhain has been celebrated for centuries.

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How Did Halloween Start in America?

The celebration of Halloween was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies.

As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included “play parties,” which were public events held to celebrate the harvest. Neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance and sing.

Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of the 19th century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.

In the second half of the 19th century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing the Irish Potato Famine, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally.

Borrowing from European traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition. Young women believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors.

In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, pranks and witchcraft. At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes.

Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything “frightening” or “grotesque” out of Halloween celebrations. Because of these efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century. Continue reading from History

 

From the Collection

Link to Tricky Treats : Halloween delights for appetizers, snacks, dinner, and dessert! by Vincent Amiel in the catalog
Link to A Season with the Witch: the magic and mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts by JW Ocker in the catalog
Link to Hallowe'en Party; Part 41 of the Hercule Poirot series by Agatha Christie in Hoopla
Link to All Hallows: a novel by Christopher Golden in the catalog
Link to Creepy Cross-Stitch: 25 spooky projects to haunt your halls by Lindsay Swearingen in the catalog
Link to Night Side of the River: Ghost Stories by Jeanette Winterson in the catalog
Link to Hocus Pocus: the Official Cookbook by Elena Craig in the catalog
Link to The Book of Wizard Craft: In Which the Apprentice Finds Spells, Potions, Fantastic Tales & 50 Enchanting Things to Make by Sterling & Co. Publishing in the catalog
Link to Oh My Gourd!: how to carve a pumpkin plus 29 other fun Halloween activities by Jack Hallow in the catalog
Link to Halloween Party Murder by Leslie Meier in the catalog
Link to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz in the catalog
Link to John Landis Presents the Library of Horror: Haunted Houses in the catalog
Link to Echoes: the Saga anthology of ghost stories edited by Ellen Datlow in the catalog

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