Halloween: The History

The celebration of Halloween was limited in colonial New England, but as the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with Irish immigrants, fleeing the Irish Potato Famine. This 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.

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.

• By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular but community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide Halloween parties featured entertainments.
• Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived. It was an inexpensive way for communities to share in the celebration.
• Today, Americans spend an estimated $6 billion annually on Halloween.

“Trick-or-treating” probably dates back to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England.

During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives.