Halloween Fun and History

1910s Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images

Halloween is fast approaching. When did our traditions of Halloween happen?  Over 2,000 years ago Halloween started in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and northwestern France from an ancient pagan festival celebrated by Celtic people. It marked the beginning of the winter season.  The Christain church started the All Saint's Day which was called All Hallows' Eve later warping into the word Halloween.

Trick or Treating was an adult event. People would leave food out on a table as a treat for spirits. In some areas of the United Kingdom and Ireland, people went mumming (parading in masks).  They would go door to door asking for food and drink in return for a performance or song. On November 5, Guy Fawkes Day, people dressed in costume and asking for food or money.

The Celts wore animal skin costumes to hide in plain sight in hopes of protecting themselves from the potential evil spirits that may appear during Samhain. If they look like a fellow spirit, they believe, it would be safe to go outside.
Souling emerged in Scotland, in which children dressed up and asked neighbors for food or money in exchange for a song or poem.

The night before Halloween, also known as Devil's Night, is when young people play tricks on their neighbors, such as decorating trees with tissue paper or soaping windows. As time progressed people didn't do harmless distruction instead they did lots of bad destruction causing many communities to discourage Devil's Night.



Halloween costumes were popularized in the United States by adults in the late 1800s. By the early 1900s, Halloween costumes were mainly worn by children and not so many adults.  In Wales, biys dressed as girls and girls dressed as boys to go house-to-house singing Halloween rhymes.

I find it fascinating about the traditions countries have for Halloween. For example, in Wales, each person puts a white stone near the Halloween fire at night and then checked in the morning to see whether the stone was still there. If it was, the person would live another year.

Early American settlers brought various beliefs about ghosts and witches. German immigrants brought a vivid witchcraft lore. Haitian and African people brought their voodoo beliefs. By the end of the 1800s, the United States had a variety of Halloween customs.

By the 1900s, Halloween was a celebration for the children than adults. Communities started hosting Haloween celebrations, parades and parties.

Store-bought costumes became more affordable in the 60s. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

After the end of the sugar rationing during World War II, candy companies started seeing a huge money-making holiday.  By the 1940s and 1950s, trick-or-treating became a widespread tradition for children. Around the 1950s, some children started asking for money for the United Nations Children's Fund. This helps aid children throughout the world.  In the 1970s fears of people poisoning the children through homemade or unwrapped sweets. Companies started individually wrapping snackable treats.

When was candy corn created? George Renniger in Philadelphia created and sold them in 1898. It was meant to look like corn kernels for chicken feed. It was never initially marketed for Halloween.

The famous Jack-o-Lanterns are said they protect from evil spirits. The name came from the legend of a boy named Jack paraded through the town with a pumpkin in which he'd trapped the devil. The devil curses Jack upon his release and condemns him to spend forever in hell. When the gates open on Halloween, Jack would escape hell to wreak havoc upon the town. The Jack-o-Lanterns were supposed to trick Jack into thinking it held the devil, scaring him off.

Apples are a symbol of fertility that features in many fortune-telling activities. Bobbing for apples says whoever can grab the apple with their teeth will marry first; other versions have the apple's marketing with initials, indicating a successful bobbers' future mate. The apple tradition has some roots in the Roman harvest festival.

 1920s ADOC Photos/Corbis/ Getty Images

Black cats are at risk during the month of October. It is said Satanists and self-proclaimed witches gather adopt black cats for sacrifice rituals. Some say this is a rumor and others say it isn't.   

What countries celebrate Halloween? 
China, Dubai, Hong Kong, Japan, Phillippines, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Canada,  Dominican Republic, Mexico, and United States. 

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The 1920s - Teenage prankster were known to wreak havoc on Halloween night, starting around the Great Depression, adults started organizing neighborhood activities like trick-or-treating, haunted houses, and costume parties to keep kids out of trouble. Felix Koch/Cincinnati Museum Center/GettyImages

1930s- people made their own costumes Angus B. McVocar/Wisconsin Historical Society/ Getty Images

1930s - A person wears his homemade mummy costume. Imagno/Getty Images

1930s H, Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/GettyImages

1940s These fifth-and sixth graders preparing for Halloween by creating paper mache masks. Orin Sealy?The Denver Post/Getty Images

1950s- mass-produced box costumes more affortable. Lambert/Getty Images

1950s started to take inspiration from current events, such as the launch of Sputnik and Soviet Officer on October 31, 1957. Earl Leaf/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

 

1960s - Halloween masks became more elaborate. H. Armstrong Roberts/Retrofile/Getty image

Makeup becomes key costume element in the 1970s. The boy is KISS fan. Harvey L. Silver/Corbis/Getty Images

Movie base costumes became popular in the 1970s. John Blanding/The Boston Globe/ Getty Images

Political costumes became popular in the 70s. Richard Nixon shown here in 1978 Kenn Bisio/The Denver Post/ Getty Image

Sexy outfits started becoming popular in the 1970s. Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images

The Thing and Batman at an annual New York City Halloween Parade from the late 1970s to 1980s Anthony Barboza/ Getty Images

1980s Vice President George H. W. Bush mask and Lourdes Lopez wears a Gov. Michael Dukakis mask as they ready for the upcoming Halloween season at their Greenwich Village in New York, 1988. Joe Conunale/AP Photo

1995 the year of the O.J. Simpson trial sold hundreds of masks of both Simpson and the presiding Judge Clark Jones/AP Photo

https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/the-evolution-of-halloween
https://wilstar.com/holidays/hallown.htm
https://www.rd.com/culture/chilling-history-of-halloween-traditions/