The History of Halloween

By: Ridhima Gandhi'28

Photo courtesy of CNN and Felix Koch/Cincinnati Museum Center/Getty Images

For many kids, Halloween means putting on scary costumes and trick-or-treating around their neighborhood. However, this is not always what Halloween was.

The origin of the festival can be traced back to Celtic harvest festivals and a Gaelic festival called Samhain, also celebrated on October 31, where people would build bonfires and offer food to satisfy the demands of wandering spirits and ward off evil. This festival marked the end of summer and harvest and marked the start of cold and dry winter. It was a time associated with death. The Celts believed that on this day, the line between dead and alive became blurred when ghosts of the dead returned to earth.  

In 1000 A.D., the church declared November 2 to be All Souls’ Day, a day meant to honor the dead that was celebrated similarly to Samhain. The night before it came to be known as “All Hallows Eve” and eventually “Halloween”. Some believe that the Celtic holiday was Christianized to become Halloween while others believe Halloween is solely a Christian holiday. 

The holiday was known as “souling” in Britain, where kids would go door to door singing songs and offering prayers for the dead in exchange for “soul cakes,” a type of sweet bread. During this activity, Christian children would carry lanterns made out of hollowed-out turnips to represent the souls of the dead and to ward off evil spirits. In other parts of Europe, such as Ireland, Flanders, Bavaria, and Tyrol, candles, which they called “soul lights” were lit to guide souls back to their homes. 

Halloween customs were brought to North America by Irish and Scottish immigrants during the 19th century. Children going around their neighborhoods in costumes, called “guising” at the time, was first referenced to occur in 1911 in North America. It wasn’t until the 1930s that Halloween became increasingly popular in the U.S. The first appearance of the term “trick-or-treating” in the US was not until 1934, although the earliest it was seen in print was in 1927 in Alberta, Canada. 

North American children held jack-o-lanterns made from pumpkins rather than turnips like the Europeans previously did. Pumpkins were both easier to carve and native to North America. The pumpkin carving tradition, recorded in 1837 was associated with harvest time rather than Halloween. At the start of Halloween in North America, trick-or-treating children were given homemade treats such as cookies, fruits, nuts, coins and toys. 

During the 1950s, candy manufacturers saw this holiday as an opportunity to promote their products. They started producing individually wrapped candies fit for Halloween distribution and promoting their products as affordable, convenient, and safer. Today, Halloween wouldn’t be the same without its plastic wrapped Hershey’s bars or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. The holiday has lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones and is often celebrated secularly for mere enjoyment.

*Note: The article was republished due to site maintenance. The original publication date is October 7th, 2024.