The important things in life must be taken lightly, the more important the thing, the more comedy and celebration gets heaped upon it. At it’s core, Halloween is a living celebration of death and the dead. Every culture that permits celebration has something like it. Many Halloween history texts say Halloween is a celtic holiday. It’s not. It was brought to America by the Irish, it’s true, but Halloween is an American holiday, and it’s invention owes itself primarily to this land.
In pre-Christian times, the Celts of Ireland and Scotland celebrated Samhain, a harvest festival and celebration of the dead. Some aspects of Samhain survive still in our Halloween celebrations, but most do not. Samhain was founded on Celtic myths, some of which included witches and mischievous spirits, but very different from Halloween witches and spirits today. Fortune telling was an important part of Samhain, and it was fortune telling that helped bridge the gap between the Irish immigrants in the US and the other US citizens in the 19th century. More on that later. The most potent symbol of Samhain was the bonfire, which has virtually disappeared as an aspect of Halloween.
When Catholicism came to the British Isles and Samhain became merged with the Catholic holidays for the dead, All Saint’s Day, All Souls Day (Dias de los Muertos in Mexico), and All Hallow’s Eve, Hallows (Holy) Eve became the word Halloween. These were celebrations that honored the spirits of dead saints and relatives that had crossed over to the spirit world. There was also the belief that on this night spirits, as well as unwanted imps and goblins, could cross back to earth. At this time Halloween was celebrated by Brits and Celts alike, and the familiar images of bobbing for apples and Jack-o-Lanterns (turnips carved with the faces of hungry jack and other lost souls) arrive. Bonfires were still important, but other familiar parts of Halloween like sweets and ghost stories also entered the festivities.
This is also around the time that masks may have entered the celebration, although in England youths who begged in masks were considered a nuisance, or criminal. We’re used to it now, but imagine if on some random day someone banged on your front door holding a bag, wearing a mask, and asking for your money? Instead of trick or treat, the rhyme was
Soul! Soul! For an apple or two!
If you have no apples,
Pears will do,
If you have no pears,
Money will do.
It you have no money,
God bless you!
When England split from the Catholic Church Halloween grew unpopular there. In the 17th century Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the house of Parliament on Novemeber 5th, and the celebration of Guy Fawkes day adopted many of the customs that had previously been for Halloween, including bonfires and masks. This makes the V for Vendetta costume, which is based on Guy Fawkes, the most ironic Halloween costume, or the most appropriate one in England, depending on how you look at it. Halloween survived in Catholic Ireland. Guy Fawkes day became it’s own strange thing in England
With the Irish potato famine of the 1870’s Halloween finally came to the USA. One of the first big changes was abandoning the turnip as the Jack-o-Lantern and adopting the more abundant and easily carved pumpkin. The first symbol of Halloween as we know it arrived, and with it the first official color scheme of Halloween - Black for the night, and orange for the pumpkins. At this time, Halloween was celebrated almost exclusively by the Scottish and Irish, and it was both a celebration of the the departed spirits and of general Irish and Scottishness, like Cinco de Mayo today is more a celebration of Mexican-ness in America than it is a celebration of a Mexican military victory over the French.
At the turn of the 19th century the puritanism that denounced witchcraft, Halloween, and many other excessive celebrations faded, and the US experienced a huge fad for Spiritualists, people who could communicate with the dead. Magic shows like Harry Houdini were popular and Occult texts were the hobby of many learned and literary minds. Halloween at this time caught on with non-celtic Americans as a night for adults to hold masquerades in which seances were held. Masquerades had long been popular with upper class Americans, and Spiritualism became a popular Victorian parlor game.
The merging of Masquerades with Halloween night with Samhain style fortune telling and cosmology, marks the origin of the Halloween costume and party. Many popular turn of the century costumes were based on spiritualism - ghosts, witches, and gypsies were popular.Halloween quickly became a huge holiday and one we would fine fairly familiar. Halloween masquerades were often announced with postcards marked with spooky images, which after the jack-o-lantern mark the second major development in Halloween decorations. Witches as we now think of them (the broom riding variety, not the neo-pagan variety), which had always been some part of Halloween, really gelled as a symbol at this time, largely due to their ability to seance. The witches pet, the Black Cat became the second biggest Halloween icon after the Jack-o-lantern.
During the first World War, Halloween as an American holiday developed very little, but in the post war film boom, the driving force of the next 80 years of Halloween history was about to explode- Horror Movies. First Dracula (1931) then Frankenstein later that year, and followed by the rest of the iconic Universal Studios monsters - the wolf man, the mummy, and more. The early monsters were still embodiments of Victorian-era notions of gothic and spirtualism, and intended for adults. With monsters hot in America’s imagination, Halloween began to shift it’s emphasis from the spirits of the departed to monsters on earth.
Children have a natural fascination with monsters and the grotesque, while unseen forces like ghosts are more terrifying. While Samhain and All Hallows Eve were mostly adult, but all ages included holidays, and the spiritualist Halloween masquerades were almost entirely adult, the new Monsterific Halloween had huge kid appeal. Trick or Treating as we now know it pops up around this time. While in UK begging for fruits, money, and “Soul Cake” had long been a small part of the Holiday, it had been absent all this time in the US, 1870-1930. That’s 60 years, or 3 generations, so one must conclude that Trick or Treating in America arose independently and not from UK masked begging. My theory is kids want candy, so smell my feet.
In 1941 the last classic horror film was made - The Wolf Man. In 1942 the US went to war, and again, the evolution of Halloween slowed to a snails pace. The 50’s saw the second horror movie boom, but with an atomic age twist. While the classic horror movies of the 30’s established the lasting gothic tone of Halloween, the Horror films of the 1950’s were aimed at drive ins, and more then ever before, at children. Giant monsters were the rage, and what is easier for a child to understand then the fear of something physically bigger then themself? Also, giant monsters threated adults and shrunk them to weak puny underlings, the same way the adult world was menacing and oversized for children.
Monsters became nearly heroic figures to children, and Halloween followed suit, becoming a “kids holiday” that adults almost never celebrated, unless it was with their kids. Monsters started appearing everywhere kids could be found, cereal, toys, and cartoons. In many of these incarnations monsters were less about killing and more about being different, often goofy. Funny Halloween was born. Also with the emphasis on creatures and kids, Halloween broke from it’s origins of spirits and death completely, and allowed anything popular with kids like cowboys and princesses to be appropriate Halloween costumes. While most Halloween decorations and costumes were still homemade, a commercial industry of Halloween stuff that could be bought at stores emerged, at first fast and cheap, but with ever growing and accelerating quality.
As outsiders, monsters were cool, and became popular symbols in the growing teen culture of hot rods, rock and roll, and surf boards. The 50’s and 60’s saw a huge explosion in novelty horror records, the most famous of which is Bobby Boris Pickett’s “The Monster Mash.”
The next major change in Halloween started in the 1980’s when 2 things happened. First, children of the Trick or Treat Halloween of the 50’s and 60’s grew up and had kids. The second is that Horror movies became slasher movies aimed at teens and young adults. The grown up Trick-or-Treaters began an arms race of ever more elaborate Halloween decorations. Before the 1980’s Haunted Houses were something at a carnival, some “real” curiosity like the Winchester Mystery House, or a primitive mix of decorations and party games at home. As Halloween decor escalated in complexity, Home Haunts started springing up, in which residents would transform their home, inside and out, into an carnival of horrors.
R rated slasher movies full of gore and sexuality were forbidden to children, but popular amongst teens and young adults out on dates. Teens found Trick-or-Treating to childish, but were developing a new kind of Halloween tradition - the sexy Halloween party. Costumes were less about scaring people or childhood role playing, and more about showing off. Similar in spirit to the Victorian masquerades. Sexy Halloween was biggest in urban areas where there were the most independent single people, and especially in gay districts. To this day New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New Orleans hold the biggest Halloween parties in the world.
By the 90’s there was a Halloween for everyone, and it gets bigger every year. Animatronic Halloween props costing thousands of dollars each are being bought by home haunters, Halloween cartoons and cereals keep the trick-or-treaters sugared up and silly, and the biggest cities in the US barricade streets, turning entire neighborhoods into free for all Halloween parties. Unless there’s a parade, no other Holiday stops traffic like Halloween does. Halloween is nearly tied with Christmas in terms of decorations, parties, and events, and is the 5th Holiday in the US in terms of money spent (the top 4 are all gift giving holidays, Christmas, Mothers day, Valentines Day, and Fathers Day).
US style Halloween is also becoming more and more popular in other countries. While it never fully left England, it’s popular again, and the American influence is noticeable. Also, in Mexico where the Catholic Day of The Dead is huge, American style Halloween is also growing in popularity as a separate Holiday. At the same time, the influx of Day of the Dead celebrating Hispanics into the US is blending their holiday into ours. It’s visible here in the streets of Los Angeles and many cemeteries hold all day and all night Day of The Dead festivals on Halloween day. Halloween music is also heavily influenced by Latinos, from white American Danny Elfman/Oingo Boingo’s dancing skeletons and horn driven party music, to Latino punks reinventing 50’s and 60’s novelty horror records as Psychobilly.
And that’s the holiday that we know and love. We still use the celebration to recognize death, spirits, and mortality, and even to some extent the harvest, but Halloween as a whole is also as much about children playing, eating candy, looking sexy, and watching horror movies. And an excuse to through a huge party.
