Happy Halloween

[BettyO]

Happy Halloween to All Our Forum Members....

   

[Hess1865]

" Every day of my life is Halloween-and I don't have to get dressed up for it!! "
-Keith Richards

[MaddieM]

(10-30-2014 12:18 PM)BettyO Wrote:  Happy Halloween to All Our Forum Members....

Happy Halloween from the UK

[Anita]

Happy Halloween. I would love to go trick or treating here.


Lincoln Home National Historic Site
Friday, October 30
5:30-7:30 PM
Hosted by the Lincoln Home Employee Association,
volunteers, partners, donors and sponsors
The historic Lincoln era neighborhood will be decorated for Halloween
and feature candy giveaways at each historic house, storytelling, music,
with volunteers and re-enactors in period dress.

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(10-31-2014 02:16 PM)Anita Wrote:  Happy Halloween. I would love to go "trick or treat" here.


Lincoln Home National Historic Site
Friday, October 30
5:30-7:30 PM
Hosted by the Lincoln Home Employee Association,
volunteers, partners, donors and sponsors
The historic Lincoln era neighborhood will be decorated for Halloween
and feature candy giveaways at each historic house, storytelling, music,
with volunteers and re-enactors in period dress.

[Eva Elisabeth]

And I would love to join you, Anita! Happy Halloween! If the Lincolns' boys went trick and treating? In other words - is this tradition that old? (Here Halloween wasn't celebrated until about a decade ago.)

[Eva Elisabeth]

My favorite: The Bushs' Scottish terriers, dressed as cowboy, wizard and strawberry!
http://m.mentalfloss.com/article.php?id=12805

[BettyO]

For the most part, Eva, trick or treating (or celebrating of Halloween) wasn't celebrated as we know it in the US until about the turn of the 20th Century - mid to late 1900's and by the 1920s and 1930s it was pretty much well established. Pumpkin carving was initially done by the Irish using turnips....

[L Verge]

Here are two good websites about the history of Halloween, especially in the U.S.:

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/halloween.html and http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/history-ha...n-america/

We used to hand out a sheet of history about Halloween each year for a long time at Surratt House. The tradition dates back to the Celts and transferred to the rest of Europe when that culture was conquered by the Romans. It then became enmeshed in the Catholic faith as part of converting pagans to Christianity. All Hallow's Eve became the time for the symbolic rising of the dead, and there was the marching through the neighborhoods and the giving out of little cakes at many homes. This was a way for the poor to get extra treats.

It was brought to America mainly in the 1800s with the large influx of Irish and Scottish immigration. It was also a bigger celebration in Southern states which did not have the heavy Puritan influence of the North. The celebrations, however, were more like parties held at churches and public buildings until well into the 20th century. I suspect that was easier in rural areas where distance precluded the marching from house to house.

It also cut down on vandalism that had crept into the observances by the early-1900s. My parents used to tell me about the boys who used to tip over outhouses, take gates off of hinges, etc.

Once suburban areas began to blossom after World War II, it was easier to bring back door-to-door trick or treating. It was also easier to control the vandalism when neighbors were closer together.

Around my area, trick or treating has slowed down, and people are going back to having parties. The adults seem to have more (drunken) fun with it now than the kids do.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Betty and Laurie - great links, especially #2! I hope I didn't overread this: what would the tricks have looked like in times before vandalism?

[L Verge]

(10-31-2014 08:28 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Thanks, Betty and Laurie - great links, especially #2! I hope I didn't overread this: what would the tricks have looked like in times before vandalism?

Good question! I don't know that I have ever seen any reference to early tricks before the 20th century.

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One last tidbit before I turn the lights back on and come out of hiding from trick-or-treaters: I love some of the comments from parents in the first half of the 20th century when trick or treating really became the vogue.

Editorial, Spokane Daily Chronicle, November 6, 1935, p. 4:
In plain fact it is straight New York or Chicago "graft" or "racket" in miniature. Certainly it wouldn't be a good idea for youngsters to go in extensively for this kind of petty "blackmail" on any other date than Halloween. Neither police nor public opinion would stand for that.

"A. Mother", letter to the editor, The Fresno Bee, November 7, 1941, p. 20:
As a mother of two children I wish to register indignation at the "trick or treat" racket imposed on residents on Hallowe'en night by the youngsters of this city.… This is pure and simple blackmail and it is a sad state of affairs when parents encourage their youngsters to participate in events of this kind.

Mrs. B. G. McElwee, letter to the editor, Washington Post, Nov. 11, 1948, p. 12:
The Commissioners and District of Columbia officials should enact a law to prohibit "beggars night" at Hallowe'en. It is making gangsters of children.… If the parents of these children were fined not less than $25 for putting their children out to beg, they would entertain their children at home.

"M.E.G.", letter to column "Ask Anne", Washington Post, Nov. 21, 1948, p. S11:
I have lived in some 20 other towns and cities and I never saw nor heard of the begging practice until about 1936.… The sooner it becomes obsolete here the better. I don't mind the tiny children who want to show off their costumes, but I resent the impudence of the older children.

Lucy Powell Seay, letter to the editor, Washington Post, Oct. 29, 1949, p. 8:
Another year has rolled around and the nightmare of having to put up with the "trick or treat" idea again fills me with dread.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Very interesting, Laurie - they sound pretty "up-to-date"...

[Anita]

(10-31-2014 08:41 PM)L Verge Wrote:  [quote='Eva Elisabeth' pid='40045' dateline='1414801687']
Thanks, Betty and Laurie - great links, especially #2! I hope I didn't overread this: what would the tricks have looked like in times before vandalism?

Good question! I don't know that I have ever seen any reference to early tricks before the 20th century.

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According to the White House Historical Assoc. Grover Cleveland who was born in 1837 "reportedly played Halloween pranks as a boy, rigging up a device to ring the school bell at midnight and removing garden gates at midnight."

From what I've read, "tricks" were played well before the custom of "trick or treating" which as Laurie mentioned "wasn't celebrated as we know it in the US until about the turn of the 20th Century".