A Brief History of Halloween and Trick-or-Treating

Trick-or-treating has been a popular American tradition for more than a century, but its origins remain unclear. Ancient Celtic festivals, early Roman Catholic holidays, medieval practices, and even British politics all lay claim as possible antecedents of the present-day practice of trick-or-treating.

Ancient Origins of Trick-or-Treating

Some say the origins of the practice of trick-or-treating might lie in the ancient, pre-Christian Celtic festival of Samhain that was celebrated on the night of October 31. The next day, November 1, marked the new year. On the Celtic calendar, this day signaled the end of summer and the beginning of the cold, dark winter, an uncertain and frightening time that was often associated with death.

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, believed that on Samhain the barrier between the living and dead was blurred more so than on any other night and that ghosts of the dead returned to earth as they transitioned to the otherworld. On the night of Samhain, people gathered to light bonfires, offer sacrifices, and pay homage to the dead.

In some Celtic celebrations of Samhain, villagers disguised themselves in costumes made of animal skins to drive away spirits while banquet tables were prepared and offerings of food and drink were left out to placate them. In later centuries, people began dressing as ghosts, demons and other malevolent creatures, performing antics in exchange for food and drink. This custom, known as mumming, dates back to the Middle Ages and is thought to be another possible antecedent of trick-or-treating.

Early Christian and Medieval Antecedents

In the first few centuries of the first millennium, Christianity spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older pagan rites. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as All Saints Day, or All Hallows Day, a time to honor all martyrs and saints. The night before (October 31) was known as All Hallows Eve, which eventually became Hallowe’en and finally Halloween.

In 1000 A.D., the church designated Nov. 2 as All Souls Day, a day when the living prayed for the souls of the dead. All Souls Day was celebrated in ways similar to Celtic commemorations of Samhain. People lit bonfires, dressed in customs as saints and devils, and masqueraded in parades.

Poor families would also visit the homes of wealthier families who would give them pastries called "soul cakes" in exchange for their promise to pray for the souls of the family's dead relatives. This practice, known as “souling,” was later taken up by children who would go from home-to-home and be given “treats” such as food, money, and ale.

A similar Scottish and Irish practice known as guising – children disguising themselves in costumes and roaming door-to-door for treats – is another possible antecedent of trick-or-treating. The big difference is that in souling children promised to say a prayer for the dead in return for their “treat” whereas guisers would sing a song, recite a poem, or perform some sort of “trick” for their treat, which traditionally consisted of fruit, coins, or nuts.

Guy Fawkes Night Celebrations

Still another antecedent might be the British custom of children wearing masks and carrying effigies while begging for pennies on Guy Fawkes Night (also known as Bonfire Night), an annual commemoration of the foiling of the so-called Gunpowder Plot of 1605. On November 5, 1606, Fawkes was executed for his role in the Catholic-led conspiracy to blow up England's parliament building in an attempt to remove the Protestant King James I from power.

The original Guy Fawkes Day was celebrated immediately after his execution. Communal bonfires were lit to burn effigies and the symbolic "bones" of the Catholic pope. By the early nineteenth century, effigies of the pope had been replaced by those of Guy Fawkes and children would roam the streets carrying an effigy or "Guy" and ask for "a penny for the Guy."

A New American Tradition

Although some early American colonists celebrated Guy Fawkes Day, the rigid Protestant belief systems of New England Puritans meant that they had no place for such pagan and Catholic celebrations as Samhain and All Souls Day, or even Halloween itself. In the southern colonies, however, where larger, more ethnically diverse European communities had settled, there are some accounts of Halloween festivities meshing with Native American autumn harvest celebrations.

In the mid-1800s, large numbers of new immigrants, especially the nearly two million Irish immigrants fleeing Ireland’s potato famine, helped to popularize Halloween. Borrowing from English and Irish traditions, children would dress in costumes and go door-to-door asking for food or money.

As Halloween grew in popularity, it was celebrated with bonfires, ghost stories, costume parties and pranks. By the 1920s, juvenile pranks had gotten out of hand and often resulted in the destruction of private property, sometimes amounting to more than $100,000 in damages each year in some major metropolitan cities.

The deepening Depression exacerbated the problem, with Halloween pranks often devolving into vandalism, assaults, and sporadic acts of violence. One theory holds that it was the excessive “pranks” on Halloween that led to the widespread adoption of an organized, community-based trick-or-treating tradition in the 1930s. This trend was abruptly curtailed, however, with the outbreak of World War II. Children were forced to refrain from trick-or-treating because of sugar rationing and pranksters were told that their actions would “hurt the war effort” and be considered “sabotage.”

With post-war prosperity and the baby boom, trick-or-treating was revived and quickly became a standard practice for millions of children in the cities and newly-built suburbs. No longer constrained by sugar rationing, major American candy companies capitalized on this lucrative trend, launching national ad campaigns specifically aimed at Halloween. If trick-or-treating had once been an intermittent practice, it was now a popular American tradition. Today, Americans spend more than $12 billion annually on Halloween, making it the nation's second largest commercial holiday.

Adapted from my article published on THE HISTORTY CHANNEL'S website history.com

Herbert Hoover, a "Chicken in Every Pot" and the Great Depression

During the Great Depression, many Americans couldn't afford to pay their mortgages and lost everything they owned. Suddenly homeless, millions of American families had no choice but to find shelter in shanty towns, or Hoovervilles, which sprang up throughout the United States in the early 1930s.

In the popular musical Annie, which takes place in a Hooverville beneath the 59th Street Bridge in New York City, there's a song called “We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover." In it, the chorus blames President Hoover for all the hardships they've endured as a result of the Great Depression. Maybe you've heard the lyrics:

[ALL]
Today we're living in a shanty
Today we're scrounging for a meal

[SOPHIE]
Today I'm stealing coal for fires
Who knew I could steal?...

[ALL]
We'd like to thank you: Herber Hoover
For really showing us the way
We'd like to thank you: Herbert Hoover
You made us what we are today...

In ev'ry pt he said "a chicken"
But Herbert Hoover he forgot
Not only don't we have the chicken
We ain't got the pot!

In the Election of 1932, Hoover never actually uttered the phrase “a chicken in every pot and two automobiles in every back yard,” but the Republican Party did run ads suggesting that this was what Americans could expect if he was elected.

As far as modern campaign slogans go, "A Chicken in Every Pot" sounds rather modest. But "the words rang hollow during the Great Depression that blighted Hoover's presidency and shook the economic foundations" of the nation to the core. As one observer remarked, daily bread and shoes without holes were hard enough to come by, let alone stewing chickens and automobiles.

Nevertheless, while millions of Americans were scrounging for food in the streets, Hoover and his wife "Lou" were entertaining on a scale not seen at the White House in years. According to historian Poppy Cannon, "The watchword had been economy while the Coolidges lived at the White House. Now it was elegance. Mrs. Hoover never questioned the amount of food consumed or its cost. Her only requirement was that it be of the best quality, well cooked and well served.”

Needless to say, this infuriated many Americans, and, in the Election of 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt won in a massive landslide, ushering in decades of Democratic dominance in presidential elections. Meanwhile, Hoover left the White House in disgrace, "having incurred the public's wrath for failing to lift the nation out of the Great Depression."

Franklin Roosevelt, World War II, and "There's Not Enough Milk for the Babies"

On February 19, 1942, just two and a half months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which led to the internment of more than 125,000 Japanese-American citizens who were forcibly removed from their homes and detained in internment camps on the West Coast until the end of World War II.

The daily conditions of camp life are especially vivid in pictures and descriptions of the mass feeding of thousands of Japanese men, women and children. On May 11, 1942, Joseph Conrad of the American Friends Service Committee submitted a Progress Report to the federal government which read:

There's not enough milk for the babies in camp because the Army's contract for milk is with farmers in Oregon and even though there is plenty of milk in the neighboring towns begging to be used, red tape makes it impossible.

There hasn't been enough food to go around because there were [more] arrivals than were expected. Some have gone without meals several times. There has been no fresh vegetables; no fruit (and a large part of the population are children), no fresh meat, but plenty of canned food for those who were early in line to get it...

Meanwhile, as thousands of interned children were suffering from malnutrition, millions of homeless and unemployed Americans were starving during the Great Depression. To address this national crisis, Soup Kitchens began opening in large cities and small towns throughout the United States.

When soup kitchens first appeared, they were generally run by churches or private charities. But by the mid-1930s, when Roosevelt was in office, state and federal governments were also operating them.

Why soup? Throughout history, soup has been one of the primary foods consumed by poor and homeless people. If you think about it, this makes sense because soup is economical (it can be prepared with whatever scraps of food are available and can be stretched to feed more people by adding water). It is also quick and simple to make (only a pot is needed) and easy to serve (it requires only a bowl and spoon, or, in a pinch, can be sipped).

Like many Americans during the Great Depression, President Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor consumed economical foods like fried cornmeal mush with dry crackers and stew. According to White House chef Henrietta Nesbitt, soup was another Roosevelt family favorite:

There was never such a family for soups as the Roosevelts. All the years they occupied the White House we kept the big steel soup kettles singing in the White House - clear soup for dinner and cream soup for lunch. Pretty nearly every usable variety of fish, fowl, beast, mineral, vegetable, and contiment was used in our White House soups...

Give Mrs. Roosevelt a bowl of soup and a dish of fruit for lunch and she'd be off with recharged vitality on one of her trips...Cream of almond - L'Amande soup - was one of her special favorites. The President was partial to fish soups... Among the recipes his mother gave me was the one for clam chowder...Another of his favorites was the green turtle soup, and there was always a great fuss when it was made.

Today, green turtle soup is prohibited in the United States because most species of sea turtles are considered threatened or endangered. But you can try this simple and economical recipe for Chicken Rice Soup from the Food Network courtesy of Ree Drummond or this one for Creamy Chicken Soup:

.

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups heavy cream
2 egg yolks, beaten
coarse Salt, to taste
fresh ground black pepper, to taste
2 cups diced cooked boneless, skinless, chicken breast
chopped fresh parsley

Add unsalted butter to stockpot. Melt over low heat. Stir in flour, and stir constantly for 2 minutes. Gradually stir in chicken stock. Heat over medium heat, almost but not boil. Add heavy cream and egg yolks to medium bowl. Whisk to combine. Ladle in ½ cup hot soup. Blend with whisk. Stir cream mixture into stockpot.Season with coarse salt and fresh ground black pepper. Add chicken meat and Simmer until heated through but not boiling. Serve hot in individual soup bowls. Garnish with chopped parsley.

FOOD FACT: In a 1942 New Republic article, Ted Nakashima described the daily conditions of camp life this way: The food and sanitation problems are the worst. We have had absolutely no fresh meat, vegetables or butter since we came here. Mealtime queues extend for blocks; standing in a rainswept line, feet in the mud, waiting for the scant portions of canned wieners and boiled potatoes, hash for breakfast or canned wieners and beans for dinner. Milk only for the kids. Coffee or tea dosed with saltpeter and stale bread are the adults' staples.

Herbert Hoover, a "Chicken For Every Pot" and the Great Depression

During the Great Depression, many Americans couldn't afford to pay their mortgages and lost everything they owned. Suddenly homeless, millions of American families had no choice but to find shelter in shanty towns, or Hoovervilles, which sprang up throughout the United States in the early 1930s.

In the popular musical Annie, which takes place in a Hooverville beneath the 59th Street Bridge in New York City, there's a song called “We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover." In it, the chorus blames President Hoover for all the hardships they are forced to endure as a result of the Great Depression. Maybe you've heard the lyrics:

[ALL]
Today we're living in a shanty
Today we're scrounging for a meal

[SOPHIE]
Today I'm stealing coal for fires
Who knew I could steal?...

[ALL]
We'd like to thank you: Herber Hoover
For really showing us the way
We'd like to thank you: Herbert Hoover
You made us what we are today...

In ev'ry pt he said "a chicken"
But Herbert Hoover he forgot
Not only don't we have the chicken
We ain't got the pot!

During the Election of 1928, Hoover never actually uttered the phrase “a chicken for every pot and two automobiles in every back yard,” but the Republican Party did run ads suggesting that this was what Americans could expect if he was elected.

As far as modern campaign slogans go, "A Chicken For Every Pot" sounds rather modest. But "the words rang hollow during the Great Depression that blighted Hoover's presidency and shook the economic foundations" of the nation to the core. As one observer remarked, daily bread and shoes without holes were hard enough to come by, let alone stewing chickens and automobiles.

Nevertheless, while millions of Americans were scrounging for food in the streets, Hoover and his wife "Lou" were entertaining on a scale not seen at the White House in years. According to culinary historian Poppy Cannon, "The watchword had been economy while the Coolidges lived at the White House. Now it was elegance...Mrs. Hoover never questioned the amount of food consumed or its cost. Her only requirement was that it be of the best quality, well cooked and well served.”

Needless to say, this infuriated many struggling Americans, and, in the Election of 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt won in a landslide, ushering in decades of Democratic dominance in presidential elections. Meanwhile, Hoover left the White House in disgrace, "having incurred the public's wrath for failing to lift the nation out of the Great Depression."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Great Depression, and the Thanksiving Day Date-Change Fiasco

So did you know that in 1939 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided to move the Thanksgiving Day holiday forward by a week? Rather than allow it to fall on its traditional date, the last Thursday of November, Roosevelt issued a proclamation declaring that the holiday would instead be celebrated one week earlier.

Why did he make such a seemingly random decision in the midst of the Great Depression? Well, his reasons were rooted in economic concerns and he hoped that by moving Thanksgiving forward it would bolster the struggling economy by extending the Christmas shopping season by a week. According to the Wall Street Journal:

There were five Thursdays in November that year, which meant that Thanksgiving would fall on the 30th. That left just 20 shopping days till Christmas. By moving the holiday up a week to Nov. 23, Roosevelt hoped to give the economy a lift by allowing shoppers more time to make their holiday purchases and —so his theory went—spend more money.

In an informal news conference in August announcing his decision, FDR offered a little tutorial on the history of the holiday. Thanksgiving was not a national holiday, he noted, meaning that it was not set by federal law. According to custom, it was up to the president to pick the date every year. It was not until 1863, when Abraham Lincoln ordered Thanksgiving to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November, that that date became generally accepted, Roosevelt explained. To make sure that reporters got his point, he added that there was nothing sacred about the date...

Just as he had done with his controversial "Court Packing" plan of 1937, Roosevelt had badly misjudged public opinion. Outraged protests began in Plymouth, Massachussetts, the place of the "first Thanksgiving" in 1621, but quickly spread to other circles, including, most notably, the competitive and highly lucrative world of collegiate sports.

PRESIDENT SHOCKS FOOTBALL COACHES: Many Games are Upset by Thanksgiving Plan, read a banner headline in the New York Times. And even in the staunchly Democratic state of Arkansas, the football coach of Little Ouachita College threatened: 'We'll vote the Republican ticket if he interferes with our football.'"

Of course, some college coaches and athletic directors were more diplomatic when it came to questioning the president. In a letter to the president's secretary, Philip Badger, Chairman of the University Board of Athletic Control at New York University wrote:

My dear Mr. Secretary:

I am wondering if you are at liberty at this time to supply me with any information over and above what has appeared in the public press to date regarding the plan of the President to proclaim November 23 as Thanksgiving Day this year instead of November 30.

Over a period of years it has been customary for my institution to play its annual football game with Fordham University at the Yankee Stadium here at New York University on Thanksgiving Day...As you probably know, it has become necessary to frame football schedules three to five years in advance, and for both 1939 and 1940 we had arranged to play our annual football game with Fordham on Thanksgiving Day, with the belief that such day would fall upon the fourth Thursday in November.

Please understand that all of us interested in the administration of intercollegiate athletics realize that there are considerations and problems before the country for solution which are far more important than the schedule problems of intercollegiate athletics. However, some of us are confronted with the problem of readjusting the date of any football contest affected by the President's proposal.

Outside of the world of collegiate sports, public opinion also ran heavily against Roosevelt's Thanksgiving Day plan, as evidenced by a national Gallup poll which found that 62% of Americans surveyed disapproved of the date change. And, as public opposition grew, some state governors reportedly "took matters into their own hands and defied the Presidential Proclamation."

According to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum:

Some governors declared November 30th as Thanksgiving. And so, depending upon where one lived, Thanksgiving was celebrated on the 23rd and the 30th. This was worse than changing the date in the first place because families that lived in states such as New York did not have the same day off as family members in states such as Connecticut! [And so] family and friends were unable to celebrate the holiday together.

By 1941, most retailers also disapproved of Roosevelt's plan, and even the federal government conceded that the date change had not resulted in any boost in sales. And so, on December 26, 1941, President Roosevelt signed Joint Resolution 41 making Thanksgiving a national holiday and mandating that it be observed on the fourth Thursday in November of each year.

FAST FACT: According to the Library of Congress, when "Abraham Lincoln was president in 1863, he proclaimed the last Thursday of November to be our national Thanksgiving Day. In 1865, Thanksgiving was celebrated the first Thursday of November, because of a proclamation by President Andrew Johnson, and, in 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant chose the third Thursday for Thanksgiving Day. In all other years, until 1939, Thanksgiving was celebrated as Lincoln had designated, the last Thursday in November."