If you were to read the almanacs of North America, written in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, you would see no mention of Halloween in the lists of holidays. It was the transatlantic migration of nearly two million Irish following the Irish potato famine (in 1845-1849) that brought the holiday and it's customs to America. The Scotts also brought their own country's version of the holiday to North America when they emigrated to America after 1870.
By the mid-19th-century America, the holiday known as Halloween became as important to the Irish-Americans and Scottish-Americans, as the Columbus Day celebrations were to the Italian-Americans. Both of these celebrations, Halloween and Columbus Day, were about heritage and customs. Families would gather together and tell stories, play games, and enjoy traditional foods.
And while pranks and mischief were common on Halloween, the home parties would center around children's games and activities such as bobbing for apples. If you look at the games that were played, these "parlor games," as they were called, were centered around future romances and match-making.
The commercial exploitation of Halloween in America, did not begin until the 20th century. The earliest products were perhaps the Halloween postcards, which were most popular between 1905 and 1915, and featured hundreds of different designs. Dennison Manufacturing Company, which published its first Halloween catalog in 1909, and the Beistle Company were pioneers in commercially made Halloween decorations, particularly die-cut paper items. German manufacturers specialized in Halloween figurines that were exported to America in the period between the two world wars.
It seems that the mass-produced Halloween costumes did not start to appear in stores until the 1950s, when trick-or-treating became a fixture of the holiday. Commercially made masks were available earlier.
Until somewhere in the 1990's, a majority of decorations were homemade and were usually displayed inside the home. Suddenly, manufactures began producing a larger variety of Halloween yard decorations, including orange trash bags, and people in cities and towns across America began to decorate the exterior of their homes. And once again, another transformation of the celebration of Halloween was born.
I'm not quite sure when I first noticed the transformation but now, it is quite common to see a home and, quite often, entire neighborhoods, decorated with large Halloween yard decorations such as illuminated jack-o'-lanterns, creepy scarecrows, and gruesome witches, foam tombstones, creaky coffins and even gargoyles. And displayed on the roofs of some of these houses, are gigantic inflatable decorations such as spiders, pumpkins, mummies, vampires and Frankenstein. It is also quite common to see homes outlined in eerie colored lights.
Other popular decorations are spooky animatronics used in window displays or on porches, large spider-webs, fancy light displays, orange and green spotlights, and scary door decorations. I've also noticed that in the last few years, it is not uncommon to hear a wide variety of ghoulish sound effects coming from a home or two.
So in truth, Halloween in modern-day America, has become one of the most commercial and profitable holidays, next to Christmas, for the retailers and candy makers.
But along about the same time of the increased interest in flamboyant decorations, there emerged a concern for the safety and welfare of children, as well as a concern about the protection of property from pranksters. Based on these concerns, in some cities and towns across America, trick-or-treating has been discouraged, forbidden, or restricted.
In it's place, some communities stage trick-or-treating events that are held within facilities such as shopping centers or malls during a designated time-frame, a house-of-horror or, even small town Halloween parades where the kids of all ages can display their costumes.
Many families have reverted back to supervised Halloween parties in the home. These parties usually involve games like searching for candy in a similar manner to Easter egg hunting, or the traditional game of bobbing for apples, telling scary stories, watching horror movies and, getting bags of candy. Similar parties are sometimes offered in the school setting where they are supervised by the teachers.
But the spirit of the Halloween celebration is still very much alive and well in many cities and towns in America!
- Salem, a town in Massachusetts, has laid claim to the title of "Halloween Capital of the World," though Salem has tried to separate itself from its history of prosecuting "witches" through the infamous Salem witch trials. Despite that, the town does see a great deal of tourism surrounding the witch trials, especially around Halloween.
Also in America:
- Keene, New Hampshire, which claims that it holds the record for most pumpkins carved in a single day, hosts a Jack-O-Lantern festival each October.
- Anoka, Minnesota, also proclaims itself as the "Halloween Capital of the World," and celebrates with a large parade.
- New York City hosts the United States' largest Halloween celebration, The Village Halloween Parade. Started by a Greenwich Village mask maker in 1973, the parade now attracts over two million spectators and participants as well as a very large television audience. It is the largest participatory parade in the country.
It is unclear where the celebration of Halloween will go from here in our culture, but one thing is sure. What was once new becomes old, and what was old, has now become new. People of all ages will always find a way to celebrate and, the celebration of Halloween is no exception.
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