As European immigrants came to America, they brought their varied
Halloween customs with them. Because of the rigid Protestant belief
systems that characterized early New England, celebration of
Halloween in colonial times was extremely limited there.
It was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies.
As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups,
as well as the American Indians, meshed, a distinctly American version
of Halloween began to emerge.
The first celebrations included "play parties," public events
held to celebrate the harvest, where 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 nineteenth century, annual autumn festivities
were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere
in the country.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded
with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the
millions of Irish fleeing Ireland's potato famine of 1846, helped
to popularize the celebration of alloween nationally.
Taking from Irish and English 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 their efforts, Halloween lost most of
its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of
the twentieth century.
By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular, but
community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide parties
as the featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many
schools and communities, vandalism began to plague Halloween
celebrations in many communities during this time.
By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully limited vandalism
and Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at
the young. Due to the high numbers of young children during
the fifties baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers
into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily
accommodated.
Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of
trick-or-treating was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively
inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween
celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being
played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats.
A new American tradition was born, and it has
continued to grow.
Today, Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween,
making it the country's second largest commercial holiday.
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