History of Halloween

Une petite histoire des fêtes par Imogen Richter, 7e année

Did you know that Halloween was originally November 1st? Well… sort of.

Halloween is an evolution of All Hallows’ Eve. It was a festival, originated by the Celts, but adapted by Christians as a way to assimilate them. In the 1840s, when Irish immigrants came here, Halloween travelled to America. It was a holiday in which children would go door to door, offering to send prayers to the deceased loved ones of those who answered the door in exchange for candy. Trick-or-Treating is a European tradition, adopted by America from European immigrants.

Although the trick-or-treat tradition we know today isn’t exactly what it was in the past, it is the same at its core. In Europe, children would dress up and go door to door asking for food or money. In the 1900s, Halloween tradition was teenagers destroying people’s property as ‘pranks’, in the USA. The most remarkable prank was when someone took apart someone's entire gate, and reassembled it in the weirdest places.

By the 1950s, vandalism calmed down, and commercialism took over. Halloween is the second-largest most lucrative holiday of the year, when an estimated 3 billion dollars worth of candy is sold.