Since its Celtic Pagan origins as Samhain in Ireland over 2,000 years ago, Halloween has grown to become a multi-billion dollar global industry. From 12-foot skeletons to DIY haunted house attractions, Halloween has captured the imagination and celebratory spirit of children and adults alike.
Samhain/Halloween takes place on October 31. This is when the end of the harvest season is celebrated, and the borders blur between this world and the world of spirits. Like neighboring holidays, Día de los Muertos and All Soul's Day, Samhain is a time to honor the dearly departed. Dining tables are set with a place for the spirits of relatives to visit and share a meal with their families. This has also become a time for creative expression, revelry, and entrepreneurship.
Halloween made its way to the United States through the swell of Irish and Scottish migrations of the nineteenth century. With these new Americans arrived Halloween traditions that included carving jack-o'-lanterns, trick-or-treating, and divination games. This seasonal event, which at one time was celebrated by a specific group of people with a particular set of traditions, has now become a global, multi-faceted holiday enjoyed by adults and children from all walks of life.
Jack-o'-Lantern
The lore of the jack-o'-lantern has multiple origin stories, one being about "Stingy Jack," aka "Jack of the Lantern." Stingy Jack tried to fool the Devil, and in return, he was condemned to wander the world as a lost soul with a glowing, carved-out turnip lantern to light his way. Jack-o'-lanterns have been said to embody spirits and protect homes from spirits. These days, jack-o'-lanterns are a beautiful way to be creative and illuminate our homes during longer nights. They have also become the international symbol of Halloween, from the plastic blow mold pails that carry trick-or-treat candy to the movie, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
In Ireland and Scotland, jack-o'-lanterns were carved from turnips and other root vegetables. When this tradition crossed the Atlantic, American jack-o'-lanterns came to be made from pumpkins because they are easy to carve and readily available. The term "jack-o'-lantern" made its first written appearance in American English in the short story "The Great Carbuncle" (Twice Told Tales), written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and published in 1837.
Trick-or-treating
The ritual of dressing up in costumes has been a part of human history for thousands of years. During Samhain, Celtic people would wear masks, animal hides, and embellishments to blend in with and/or appease and/or scare away spirits. However, the concept of trick-or-treating can be directly attributed to "guising," which originated in 16th-century Ireland and Scotland. Guising, aka disguising, was a practice where costumed children would go door to door performing poems and songs in exchange for treats on Halloween. By the early 1900s, guising started spreading across North America, eventually becoming known as "trick-or-treating" in the 1920s.
Costumes
Early trick-or-treating costumes in the United States were often ghoulish, meant to scare away troublesome spirits. They were also a great disguise for children and teens who wanted to engage in tricks. These tricks, or pranks, became very problematic, and consequently, neighborhoods began to create events like costume parties and haunted houses to occupy young troublemakers.
The Great Depression befell the economy as trick-or-treating began to gain momentum. Therefore, many families couldn’t afford the boxed costumes that department stores like Sears sold. Instead, homemade costumes were prevalent, with bed sheets, makeup, and papier-mache masks being the common ingredients in popular characters like ghosts, witches, and skeletal ghouls.
In 1938, one of the first over-the-head latex masks was created by Don Post Sr, aka "The Godfather of Halloween." This mask was lightweight and retained its shape, making it very useful in the film industry and popular as a Halloween costume choice. Don also pioneered product licensing, which helped Halloween merchandising grow exponentially thanks to licensed products like Star Wars and Planet of the Apes masks. One of the many items created by Don Post Studios that is still very in demand to this day is the altered Captain Kirk/William Shatner mask worn by Michael Myers in the Halloween film franchise.
By the 1950s, boxed costumes became affordable for most Americans thanks to the economic rise of the middle class. Franchises like Batman, Disney, and the Universal Monsters were popular choices for manufactured costumes. This era was the golden age of television when TV shows and their protagonists became immersed in pop culture and merchandising. Costumes inspired by TV shows like Zorro, Davy Crockett, and Gunsmoke became all the rage. This was also the Atomic Age, during which sci-fi and horror became wildly popular as movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still and cult figures like Vampira stoked imaginations nationwide.
Halloween costumes have always been an accepted form of self-expression for the sake of the holiday. This has had the vile consequence of racist costumes being paraded about. On the opposite spectrum, Halloween costumes have allowed people to express their true selves without fear of retaliation in the form of physical assault or arrest. This was especially true when laws targeting the LGBTQIA+ community in the United States could lead to arrest for "crossdressing."
Candy
In the early days of trick-or-treating/guising in North America, children were given treats like fruits and nuts and homemade sweets like cookies and popcorn balls. Towards the late 19th century, the candy manufacturing industry was in full swing, offering mass-produced confections that were both affordable and widely available. The disputed Halloween favorite, candy corn (née "chicken feed"), was invented in the 1880s by George Renninger of the Wunderle Candy Company. The ensuing years saw the inventions of Hirschfield's Tootsie Roll (1896), Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar (1900), Crane's Life Savers (1912), Curtiss Candy Company’s Butterfinger (1923), Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (1928), Mars' M&M's (1941), along with a massive variety of candy and chocolate that inundated the American market in the 20th century.
Urban Legends
Stories of candy-tampering during Halloween started in the late 1950s and reached a feverish pitch in the 1980s thanks to sensationalistic journalism and panicked parents. The urban legends of razor blades in candied apples and poisoned chocolate bars cast a dark cloud over neighborhood trick-or-treating. Therefore, more controlled trick-or-treating events, like shopping mall candy giveaways and trunk-or-treating, gained popularity.
A documented instance of an attempt at poisoning was described as a prank by the perpetrator, Long Island housewife Helen Pfeil. She was arrested in 1964 for giving out packages containing steel wool, dog biscuits, and clearly marked ant poison buttons as a joke to trick-or-treaters whom she deemed to be too old for the activity. Nobody was harmed.
The only victim who died of an intentional trick-or-treat candy poisoning in the United States was 8-year-old Timothy O'Bryan. He was murdered for life insurance money in 1974 by his father, Ronald Clark O’Bryan, who laced a Pixy Stix with potassium cyanide. O’Bryan was dubbed "The Candy Man" and "The Man Who Killed Halloween." He was executed by lethal injection in 1984.
The Halloween urban legends that people are more interested in these days are the tales of horror and the supernatural brewed up by writers and filmmakers. Some stories, like Michael Dougherty’s Trick 'r Treat, tell of urban legends directly related to Halloween. Other stories, like Clive Barker's Candyman (originally "The Forbidden," a short story from The Books of Blood, Volume 5), are urban legends that have become films favorites to watch on chilly October nights.
Divination
Divination, the practice of obtaining knowledge of future events through supernatural means, is an occult art that can be traced back to the scrying rituals of ancient Mesopotamia. The Celts also partook in divination practices; some were somber rituals, and some were festive games. These games could occur on Samhain, using divination tools like nuts or apples. Apples were considered a magical fruit that connected the world of humans to the paradise of Avalon, the Isle of Apples. Games like bobbing for apples still exist today.
In an article from the October 1889 edition of The Ladies' Home Journal entitled, "All Hallow Eve. A Nutting Shake and Other Games," Mrs. A. G. Lewis details several early American Halloween divination games. One game involved the roasting of apples:
"If an apple cooks evenly to the core without scorching, and the seeds number seven or fourteen, or possibly twenty-one, great good fortune may be expected."
Fortune telling continues to be a part of Halloween celebrations. The Fortune Teller figure has graced many carnivals and Halloween festivals, making predictions with her crystal ball. These days, she is most often seen employing cartomancy with a tarot card deck instead of scrying with a crystal ball. Tarot card readings have become very popular, and the decks are now available in a wide array of designs and formats. Tarot card reading is currently the most popular form of divination in the United States.
The Commercialization of Halloween
From ghost string lights to inflatable Jack Skellingtons, Halloween merchandising has become increasingly lucrative with each passing year. The commercialization of Halloween started in the early 1900s with Halloween-themed confectionery packaging, die-cut paper decorations, and postcards. The images created for these postcards helped mold a universal visual language for Halloween: grinning jack-o'-lanterns, witches riding on brooms or stirring cauldrons, black cats and full moons, wide-eyed owls, dancing skeletons and spectres, mischievous imps, harvest vegetables, and more. The Public Domain Review describes this "golden era" (ca. 1905-1920) of picture postcards:
"Rarely seen or used in the US before 1893, an estimated 900 million postcards had been mailed two decades later. And quite a few of these were Halloween-themed. Historian Lisa Morton reckons that around 3,000 unique designs for spooky cards were created in the golden era alone, cards which helped popularize the celebration and standardize its imagery. Viewing them today, much of the iconography is familiar — black cats, jack-o'-lanterns, witches' brooms…"
By the 1950s, the growing middle class and manufacturing boom made “accessible luxuries” like candy and boxed costumes very affordable. By the 1960s, Halloween was a reason to market any product with a possible connection to the holiday.
In the 21st century, Halloween has grown to impact the economy of the United States significantly. Consumer spending is continuously increasing, with the 2023 Halloween season totaling a record high of 12.2 billion dollars. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that same year showed a total of 808.13 million dollars in pumpkin sales. The job market also continues to enjoy a nice boost thanks to the seasonal employment of theme parks, haunted house attractions, and pop-up costume and merchandise shops.
The increase in spending for Halloween can be attributed to several factors—one being the fact that retail stores start selling Halloween merchandise as early as August. Another reason for increased spending is that people find comfort in ritual celebrations, especially those that serve as creative outlets. Fueled by TikTok and other viral social media videos, Halloween enthusiasts are learning how to create more fantastical costumes, elaborate treats, and intricate home decor. Halloween is also a good excuse to unplug from our devices and socialize, from hosting costume parties to creating DIY haunted house attractions in a home driveway. All of this has significantly increased the purchase of Halloween-related materials and merchandise.
Fun & Free
If you don't want to spend money, there are plenty of ways to enjoy Halloween for free. You can visit one of the many free/donation-based haunted house attractions and yard displays as detailed on the socalhauntlist.com. You can repurpose clothes for a costume and make decorations with household objects. With your library card, you have many free options—from Kanopy’s "Fright Fest" curated list of movies to Freegal’s Halloween-themed music to spooky audiobooks on Libby/Overdrive.
No matter how commercialized Halloween becomes, it will always be a time of wonder and celebration as the harvest season ends and winter begins. The Celts celebrated their New Year during Samhain, and like them, we celebrate Halloween with feasts and festivities partnered with a mindfulness of the changing seasons and the circle of life.
Further Reading
