history of halloween research project

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Halloween 2024

By: History.com Editors

Updated: January 31, 2024 | Original: November 18, 2009

Halloween is a holiday celebrated each year on October 31, and Halloween 2024 will occur on Thursday, October 31. The tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain , when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints. Soon, All Saints Day incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows Eve, and later Halloween. Over time, Halloween evolved into a day of activities like trick-or-treating, carving jack-o-lanterns, festive gatherings, donning costumes and eating treats.

When Is Halloween 2024?

Halloween is celebrated each year on October 31. Halloween 2024 will take place on Thursday, October 31.

Ancient History of Halloween

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts , who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.

This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes.

When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

Did you know? One quarter of all the candy sold annually in the U.S. is purchased for Halloween.

By A.D. 43, the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the 400 years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of bobbing for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

All Saints' Day

On May 13, A.D. 609, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1.

By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In A.D. 1000, the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It’s widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church-sanctioned holiday.

All Souls’ Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils . The All Saints’ Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.

How Did Halloween Start in America?

The celebration of Halloween was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies.

As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included “play parties,” which were public events held to celebrate the harvest. Neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance and sing.

Did you know? More people are buying costumes for their pets. Americans spent nearly $500 million on costumes for their pets in 2021—more than double what they spent in 2010.

Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of the 19th century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.

In the second half of the 19th century, America was flooded with new immigrants . These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing the Irish Potato Famine , helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally.

Gallery: White House Halloweens

History of Trick-or-Treating

Borrowing from European traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition. Young women believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors.

In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, pranks and witchcraft . At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes.

Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything “frightening” or “grotesque” out of Halloween celebrations. Because of these efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century.

Halloween Parties

By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular but community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide Halloween parties as the featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, vandalism began to plague some celebrations in many communities during this time.

By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully limited vandalism and Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at the young. Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily accommodated.

Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats.

Thus, a new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country’s second largest commercial holiday after Christmas .

Halloween Movies

Speaking of commercial success, scary Halloween movies have a long history of being box office hits. Classic Halloween movies include the “Halloween” franchise, based on the 1978 original film directed by John Carpenter and starring Donald Pleasance, Nick Castle, Jamie Lee Curtis and Tony Moran. In “Halloween,” a young boy named Michael Myers murders his 17-year-old sister and is committed to jail, only to escape as a teen on Halloween night and seek out his old home, and a new target. A direct sequel to the original "Halloween" was released in 2018, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Nick Castle. A sequel to that, "Halloween Kills," was released in 2021; and a sequel to that, "Halloween Ends," was released in 2022.

Considered a classic horror film down to its spooky soundtrack, "Halloween" inspired other iconic “slasher films” like “Scream,” “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Friday the 13.” More family-friendly Halloween movies include “Hocus Pocus,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Beetlejuice” and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” 

All Souls Day and Soul Cakes

The American Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating probably dates back to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives.

The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as “going a-souling,” was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food and money.

The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry.

On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits.

On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.

Gallery: Halloween Costumes Through the Ages

Black Cats and Ghosts on Halloween

Halloween has always been a holiday filled with mystery, magic and superstition. It began as a Celtic end-of-summer festival during which people felt especially close to deceased relatives and friends. For these friendly spirits, they set places at the dinner table, left treats on doorsteps and along the side of the road and lit candles to help loved ones find their way back to the spirit world.

Today’s Halloween ghosts are often depicted as more fearsome and malevolent, and our customs and superstitions are scarier too. We avoid crossing paths with black cats , afraid that they might bring us bad luck. This idea has its roots in the Middle Ages , when many people believed that witches avoided detection by turning themselves into black cats.

We try not to walk under ladders for the same reason. This superstition may have come from the ancient Egyptians , who believed that triangles were sacred (it also may have something to do with the fact that walking under a leaning ladder tends to be fairly unsafe). And around Halloween, especially, we try to avoid breaking mirrors, stepping on cracks in the road or spilling salt.

Halloween Matchmaking and Lesser-Known Rituals

But what about the Halloween traditions and beliefs that today’s trick-or-treaters have forgotten all about? Many of these obsolete rituals focused on the future instead of the past and the living instead of the dead.

In particular, many had to do with helping young women identify their future husbands and reassuring them that they would someday—with luck, by next Halloween—be married. In 18th-century Ireland, a matchmaking cook might bury a ring in her mashed potatoes on Halloween night, hoping to bring true love to the diner who found it.

In Scotland, fortune-tellers recommended that an eligible young woman name a hazelnut for each of her suitors and then toss the nuts into the fireplace. The nut that burned to ashes rather than popping or exploding, the story went, represented the girl’s future husband. (In some versions of this legend, the opposite was true: The nut that burned away symbolized a love that would not last.)

Another tale had it that if a young woman ate a sugary concoction made out of walnuts, hazelnuts and nutmeg before bed on Halloween night she would dream about her future husband.

Young women tossed apple-peels over their shoulders, hoping that the peels would fall on the floor in the shape of their future husbands’ initials; tried to learn about their futures by peering at egg yolks floating in a bowl of water and stood in front of mirrors in darkened rooms, holding candles and looking over their shoulders for their husbands’ faces.

Other rituals were more competitive. At some Halloween parties, the first guest to find a burr on a chestnut-hunt would be the first to marry. At others, the first successful apple-bobber would be the first down the aisle.

Of course, whether we’re asking for romantic advice or trying to avoid seven years of bad luck, each one of these Halloween superstitions relies on the goodwill of the very same “spirits” whose presence the early Celts felt so keenly.

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The Origins of Halloween

Halloween history and ethnography.

If you were an alien and came down to observe us Earthlings for a week at the end of October, would Halloween blow your little green mind?

Here in the U.S., Halloween blends the Celtic Samhain festival of autumn harvest, the Christian All Hallows’ (or Saints’) Eve, and modern consumerism into a heady mix of candy-binging that culminates a month-long ritual of planning, shopping, and decorating with lots and lots of plastic.  Also, some fundamentalists refuse to allow their children to participate in it, and in some places it’s an excuse for devilry (“Hell Night”) or even arson.

It should make sense that anthropologists can’t wait to get their fangs in such rich material. Cindy Dell Clark doesn’t disappoint in her study of six- and seven-year-olds and their parents at the turn of the 21st century. “Halloween brings about labyrinths of meaning in which evil and mortality are condoned and foregrounded; such anomalies leave children to actively work out twisted inversions of meaning.” Meanwhile, adults “seem to be bent not simply on shaping children, but on other sorts of symbolic missions in which children and elders have mutual influence.”

For younger children, Halloween can actually be frightening: they are supposed to do the things they aren’t allowed normally, like talk to strangers and make demands of adults (“trick or treat”). Children are supposed to act like adults, adults like children, costuming and play-acting in a one-night-a-year inversion of roles, ideally rewarded by obscene amounts of candy for the kids and who-knows-what for adults.

One of Clark’s points is the nostalgia adults feel for this autumnal evening ritual. It was a lot more innocent back then, evidently, although whenever exactly “then” was may be debatable. The 1970s, for instance, saw a surge in stories about “Halloween sadism.”  The ghoulish Joel Best and Gerald T. Horiuchi reviewed such news stories from 1958-1983, and came to the conclusion that threats about poisoned or booby-trapped treats were “greatly exaggerated.” They detail how such urban myths–I mean, how could somebody actually hide a razor in an apple, anyway?–are created and perpetuated in times of social stress and anxiety.

So don’t you just want to take a break and put your freak on? Undead folklorist Jack Kuglemass gives us a history and ethnography of the Greenwich Village Halloween parade, “New York’s answer to Mardi Gras,” which is worth reading for its description of attendees alone.

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Halloween Resources for Fun and Research

Books on the history of halloween, selection of databases for halloween research.

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History of Halloween

Nike Nivar | Oct 31, 2011

Our present-day Halloween celebration is rooted in Samhain , an ancient Celtic festival of the dead. The Celts believed Samhain was the day ghosts were free to mingle with the living. The people provided offerings of food and drink to appease these spirits, and lit bonfires to aid the dead on their journey. In an effort to weaken this pagan holiday, the Christian feast of All Saints was set for November 1. However, this Celtic festival’s mark was not completely erased, and All Hallows Eve—or Halloween—became the reincarnation of the celebration of the dead.

Not even today's Halloween holiday can escape this ancient mythology. The ghost stories, haunted houses, pumpkin carvings, and trick-or-treaters that make up the Halloween celebration can all be traced back to Samhain.

Today, we celebrate Halloween with articles, videos, and lesson plans that cover the origin and history of Halloween. For those not faint of heart, we also have some historical ghost stories; click the links if you dare.

History of Halloween Read about the history and customs of All Hallows Eve from the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Folklorist Jack Santino explores the origin of Halloween, and discusses its different iterations through time.

Multi-Media The History Channel presents a short video on the haunted history of Halloween. Watch and learn how Halloween became the American staple it is today.

Lesson Plans Cemeteries as Historical Ground This lesson plan from The Learning Network of the New York Times introduces students to graveyards as significant historical places. Students will examine epitaphs and grave symbols, make connections to the society and time period the epitaphs are from, and create an epitaph for and a brief biography of a deceased historical figure whom they admire.

Origins of Halloween and the Day of the Dead Through this lesson plan from EDSITEment, students will learn the history of Halloween, see how it compares to our modern Halloween, and explore Mexico’s El Día de los Muertos.

Fun Figures like Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross, Robert E. Lee, and many others are part of chilling historical ghost stories. Check out the Travel Channel’s accounts of “ Historic U.S. Ghosts ,” and the History Channel’s “ Famous Ghosts in American History .” Read about how the Philosophical Society’s statue of Franklin has been seen dancing along city streets, or read how Dolly Madison’s ghost prevented her cherished rose garden from being dug up.

This post first appeared on AHA Today .

Tags: AHA Today Resources for History Enthusiasts

The American Historical Association welcomes comments in the discussion area below, at AHA Communities , and in letters to the editor . Please read our commenting and letters policy before submitting.

Please read our commenting and letters policy before submitting.

A coven of costumed "witches" line up for a Halloween portrait around 1910.

Halloween: costumes, history, myths, and more

Get the facts on Halloween's history and why we love it so much today.

Today's mix of parties, pranks, and profit is a far cry from Halloween's ancient origins. Over the centuries the celebration has seen a lot of changes, and we've summed them up here for you.

Pagan Progenitor

Halloween's origins date back more than 2,000 years. On what we consider November 1, Europe's Celtic peoples celebrated their New Year's Day, called Samhain (SAH-win).

On Samhain eve—what we know as Halloween—spirits were thought to walk the Earth as they traveled to the afterlife. Fairies, demons, and other creatures were also said to be abroad. (See pictures of crypts and catacombs .)

Celtic Costumes

In addition to sacrificing animals to the gods and gathering around bonfires, Celts often wore costumes—probably animal skins—to confuse spirits, perhaps to avoid being possessed, according to the American Folklife Center at the U.S. Library of Congress.

By wearing masks or blackening their faces, Celts are also thought to have impersonated dead ancestors.

Young men may have dressed as women and vice versa, marking a temporary breakdown of normal social divisions.

In an early form of trick-or-treating, Celts costumed as spirits are believed to have gone from house to house engaging in silly acts in exchange for food and drink—a practice inspired perhaps by an earlier custom of leaving food and drink outdoors as offerings to supernatural beings.

Christian Influence on Halloween

Samhain was later transformed as Christian leaders co-opted pagan holidays. In the seventh century Pope Boniface IV decreed November 1 All Saints' Day, or All Hallows' Day.

The night before Samhain continued to be observed with bonfires, costumes, and parades, though under a new name: All Hallows' Eve—later "Halloween."

Halloween Arrives in America

European immigrants brought Halloween to the United States, and the celebration really gathered steam in the 1800s, when Irish-American immigration exploded.

Anoka, Minnesota , may be home to the United States' oldest official Halloween celebration. Beginning in 1920, the city began staging a parade and bonfire.

Anoka historians say townsfolk wanted to curb Halloween pranks that loosed cows on Main Street and upended outhouses.

Do You Believe in Magic?

More than a third of Americans say they believe in ghosts, according to an AP-Ipsos poll conducted before Halloween 2007. Twenty-three percent claimed to have seen a ghost or sensed one's presence.

About one in five people believe that spells or witchcraft are real, according to the poll.

Halloween Urban Legends

Some Halloween spook stories just won't die—even if there's little substance behind the scare.

For example, satanic cults—far more common in fiction than in fact—have been said to sacrifice black cats on Halloween.

But experts say that there is little evidence for such fears, and that the few isolated incidents involving abused black cats were the work of disturbed—often adolescent—loners.

Candy tainted by poisons, needles, or razor blades is another Halloween hobgoblin.

But sociologist Joel Best said in 2010 that dangerous-candy rumors might be manifestations of fears and anxieties about the future. In a world where so many threats—terrorism, crashing stock markets—seem uncontrollable, it may be comforting for parents to focus on preventable calamities, such as a child biting into a spiked apple, said Best, of the University of Delaware.

Best conducted a study of alleged tainted Halloween candy incidents.

"I have been unable to find a substantiated report of a child being killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up in the course of trick-or-treating," he wrote.

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Articles on History of Halloween

Displaying all articles.

Nos Galan Gaeaf: the traditional Welsh celebration being eclipsed by modern Halloween

Simon Rodway , Aberystwyth University

From Black Death to COVID-19 , pandemics have always pushed people to honor death and celebrate life

Nükhet Varlik , Rutgers University - Newark

Don’t cancel Halloween: some ‘spooky’ tips on how to stay COVID-safe this All Hallows’ Eve

Lorna Piatti-Farnell , Auckland University of Technology

Half a billion on Halloween pet costumes is latest sign of America’s out-of -control consumerism

Jay L. Zagorsky , Boston University

Why has Halloween become so popular among adults?

Linus Owens , Middlebury

Halloween: turning to the supernatural to work through our anxieties

Simon Kelly , University of Huddersfield and Kathleen Riach , Monash University

Halloween in Hollywood: five films for All Hallows’ Eve

Andrew Dix , Loughborough University

Tricking and treating has a history

Regina Hansen , Boston University

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NPR history podcast 'Throughline' examines the rise of Halloween's popularity

Rund Abdelfatah

Ramtin Arablouei

Halloween is now a multi-billion dollar industry. The holiday traces its roots back about 2,000 years to the Irish countryside and a spiritual celebration known as Samhain.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Does this sound familiar? Mid-October, buy Halloween candy. Mid-October, begin eating Halloween candy. October 30, buy more Halloween candy. The holiday is now a multibillion-dollar industry, but Halloween traces its roots back about 2,000 years to the Irish countryside and a spiritual celebration known as Samhain. So how did Halloween get so commercial? We turn to the hosts of NPR's history podcast, Throughline, Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei.

RAMTIN ARABLOUEI, BYLINE: Halloween in early 20th-century America was a holiday just for kids, a night all about mischief and pranks.

LISA MORTON: These pranks are perpetrated mainly by young boys. And the pranks start kind of innocent.

RUND ABDELFATAH, BYLINE: That's Lisa Morton, author of three books on the history of Halloween.

MORTON: Kids running out to, say, a local farm on Halloween night, they might disassemble a gate around the farmer's property and reassemble that gate in some place weird like on top of the barn.

ABDELFATAH: What was the response to these pranks?

MORTON: At first, people were mildly irritated, but kind of thought it was fun.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MORTON: The problem is, as the U.S. became much more urbanized in moving into the 1920s and '30s, the kids went into the cities as the cities were expanding. And at that point, the prank playing became far less innocent. It became out-and-out vandalism.

(SOUNDBITE OF GLASS SHATTERING)

MORTON: The kids were going into the cities and were starting fires. They were breaking windows. They were smashing light fixtures. They were tripping people on the sidewalks.

ABDELFATAH: And just as people were calling for a Halloween ban, others began to brainstorm a different solution to the pranking problem.

MORTON: They looked at it and thought, maybe we can buy these kids off.

ARABLOUEI: Entire neighborhoods started getting together for what they'd call house-to-house parties.

MORTON: The way it would work was that the first house might offer the kids a simple little costume, like a sheet, where they could dress up and pretend to be a ghost. And then the next house might offer the kids a little spooky walk through a disguised basement, and then the next house would offer the kids a treat. And eventually, out of that, we get the whole ritual of trick or treat.

ARABLOUEI: By the 1950s, television was spreading across America, and with it, sitcoms spreading the idea of Halloween that went hand in hand with trick or treating.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE AND HARRIET")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Trick or treat, trick or treat.

MORTON: "The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet" has a Halloween episode.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Oh, well, you look like a couple of desperate characters. I'm afraid I'll have to give in.

MORTON: There also was an immensely popular Disney cartoon, a Donald Duck cartoon called "Trick Or Treat," that helped cement the popularity of this growing ritual.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "TRICK OR TREAT")

CLARENCE NASH: (As Donald Duck) Hello, boys, trick or treat. Now here's your trick.

THE MELLOMEN: (Singing) Trick or treat, take a treat, trick or treat for Halloween.

ARABLOUEI: TV networks weren't the only ones going all in on the holiday.

MORTON: Now the candy companies come in. And they say, we'll make candies for you to give out. And the costume companies come in and say, we're going to give you not only a premade costume, but it's going to be your kid's favorite character.

ARABLOUEI: Corporate America sniffed an opportunity. They started to ask, could this kid's holiday be successful with adults, too?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) All you ghouls and goblins gather round.

MORTON: Coors, in the early '80s, was looking at holidays that they could kind of claim. They looked at Halloween, which at that point was not a major adult holiday, and somebody at Coors was brilliant enough to hire Elvira.

ABDELFATAH: Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

CASSANDRA PETERSON: (As Elvira) Elvira here, Mistress of the Dark and sometimes surfer babe because Coors Light is the official beer of Halloween, and the party is at the Beach, Mali-boo (ph) beach, where you can...

MORTON: She's gorgeous, she's very voluptuous, she's witty, she's gothy. And as soon as they put standees of Elvira in every supermarket in the country, the beer flew off the shelves on Halloween.

PETERSON: (As Elvira) Hello, darling. Yes sirree, it's little ol' me.

ABDELFATAH: Dressed in a tight, low-cut black gown, a dramatic pouf in her hair and stilettos, Elvira embraced the vampy, subversive, seductive side of fear.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, singing) And then a step to the right.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) With your hands on your hips.

ARABLOUEI: Elvira understood the cultural power of Halloween, and so did movie execs. In the 1970s and '80s, Halloween and horror movies were popping up left and right. There was something for everyone.

MORTON: Well, there is absolutely one movie we can point to...

UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: The one...

MORTON: That...

UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: The only.

MORTON: ...Completed that conversion of Halloween from a kid's to an adult's holiday.

UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: The classic.

MORTON: John Carpenter's "Halloween."

UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: Halloween night, a small American town.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HALLOWEEN")

JAMIE LEE CURTIS: (As Laurie) Oh, God. Help me, please. Hello, hello?

MORTON: It was the first time that a movie used the holiday in a really horrific sense. And it was, of course, a terrifying movie. It was also, at the time, the most successful independent film ever made. Its impact almost cannot be understated, I think.

CURTIS: (As Laurie) I killed him.

BRIAN ANDREWS: (As Tommy) You can't kill the boogeyman.

(SCREAMING)

MORTON: The last major evolution, I think, of the holiday that's fascinating is the global export. Our sitcoms and our television shows have been sold to markets all over the world, specifically "The Simpsons."

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE SIMPSONS")

NANCY CARTWRIGHT: (As Bart) You're here, aren't you?

(As Hugo) Yes, Bart, I never left you.

MORTON: And of course, "The Simpsons" does a yearly Halloween episode. And people all over the world were seeing that and going, I like that. I want to do that.

ABDELFATAH: It's an American capitalism success story, that's what it sounds like.

MORTON: (Laughter) Yes, indeed, it is.

ARABLOUEI: In the U.S. alone, people are expected to spend nearly $4 billion just on Halloween candy this year. In the battle of trick or treats, treats are coming out on top.

FADEL: That was Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdelfatah, the hosts of NPR's history podcast Throughline. To learn even more about the history of Halloween, check out the full episode.

Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Celebrate Halloween!

Event Description

In the United States, Halloween is celebrated on October 31. The holiday has its roots in the pre-Christian Celtic festival of Samhain. It was Christianized in the 9th century as "All Hallows' Eve," which precedes the Roman Catholic celebration of All Saints' Day on November 1.

Classroom Activity

• If you have Internet access in your class or school, assign one common aspect of Halloween (e.g., costumes, pumpkins, witches) to a group of students and ask them to search for information about how that aspect came to be a part of Halloween tradition.
• Have students make a list of the characters from a text that they are currently reading (or from texts read earlier in the year). Ask students to create masks or costumes that represent one of the characters from the text. Each student could then be asked to deliver a short monologue as that character to a small group.
• Ask students to write a narrative describing their best Halloween ever, an expository essay that tells how to plan a Halloween celebration, or a spooky Halloween mystery story. They can plan the last one using the interactive Mystery Cube tool. Helpful information can be found on the Mystery Cube page.

This online magazine is a great place to research the history of Halloween and includes a link for teachers to find a few classroom activities.

Elementary students in the United States and Canada share their language arts activities in this collaborative Internet project about autumn. Students can view the work and use it as a model for their own projects. Don't miss the Haunted House showcased in Mrs. Silverman and Miss Sowa's class .

This page from KidsReads.com provides an annotated list of books about Halloween.

This page from the Library of Congress American Memory website features primary documents related to Halloween, including interviews, folk tales, and audio files. Some highlights include images of magician Harry Houdini, first-hand accounts of Halloween tricks of the past, and spooky songs.

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The Mystery Cube helps students identify and summarize story elements in this popular genre. It can be used as a postreading or prewriting activity.

The interactive Cube Creator helps students identify and summarize key elements. It can be used as a prewriting or postreading activity.

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A Brief History of the Haunted House

How Walt Disney inspired the world’s scariest Halloween tradition

Chris Heller

Former Assistant Digital Editor, Humanities

The  scariest haunted house of 2017  is a giant walk-through attraction located in the former Georgia Antique Center in the outskirts of Atlanta. Named Netherworld , it features 3D special effects, aerial performers and, of course, flesh-eating clowns. Netherworld frightens so effectively, so inescapably, that people with heart conditions are  warned against buying tickets .

This is what a haunted house is supposed to do. They exist to scare people. The idea behind haunted houses is not new, of course— people have entertained themselves with spooky stories for centuries — but haunted houses are different because they are inseparable from the holiday that vaulted them to cultural prominence. The tradition could not exist without Halloween; Halloween would not be the same without it.

The origins of the haunted house date back to 19th-century London, when a series of illusions and attractions introduced the public to new forms of gruesome entertainment. In 1802, Marie Tussaud scandalized British audiences with an exhibition of wax sculptures of decapitated French figures, including King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Marat and Robespierre. Tussaud's likenesses were remarkably accurate, and with good reason — she created death masks of  the French Revolution's many guillotine victims . When she set up a permanent London exhibition, she dubbed her grotesque collection the "Chamber of Horrors" — a name that has stuck  to the wax museum to this day .

At the turn of the 20th century, as Rebekah McKendry describes in  Fangoria  magazine , the closest relatives to modern haunted houses began experimenting with macabre themes. In Paris, the Grand Guignol theater became notorious for its on-stage depictions of  graphic dismemberment ; the theater's director, Max Maurey, famously boasted that he judged each performance by the number of people who passed out, shocked, in the audience. In 1915, an English fairground in Liphook debuted one of the first " ghost houses ," an early type of commercial horror attraction. The public appetite for horror was picking up.

Lisa Morton, author of  Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween , tells Smithsonian.com that Halloween-themed haunted houses first emerged during the Great Depression as American parents schemed up ways to distract young tricksters, whose holiday pranks had escalated to  property damage, vandalism and harassment of strangers . "They came in about the same time as trick-or-treat did," she says. "Cities looked for ways to buy these kids off, essentially."

Those first haunted houses were very primitive. Groups of families would decorate their basements and hold "house-to-house” parties. Kids could spook themselves by traveling from basement to basement and experiencing different scary scenes.  This 1937 party pamphlet  describes how parents could also design "trails of terror" to spook their children. The effects may seem familiar to anyone who has ever been disappointed by a sub-par scare:

An outside entrance leads to a rendezvous with ghosts and witches in the cellar or attic. Hang old fur, strips of raw liver on walls, where one feels his way to dark steps....Weird moans and howls come from dark corners, damp sponges and hair nets hung from the ceiling touch his face....Doorways are blockaded so that guests must crawl through a long dark tunnel....At the end he hears a plaintive 'meow' and sees a black cardboard cat outlined in luminous paint..."

The haunted house didn't become a cultural icon, though, until Walt Disney decided to build one. Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion opened in 1969, nearly two decades after Disney first approved  the beleaguered project . The attraction, which was designed in the style of the  Evergreen House  and the  Winchester Mystery House , quickly became a success. In a single day shortly after its debut, more than 82,000 people passed through the Haunted Mansion. The attraction's centerpiece is the  Grand Hall , a 90-foot-long ballroom sequence of  dancing ghouls at a birthday party . Disney brought to scene to life through an exceptionally complex series of illusions known as Pepper's ghost, which use refracted light to project and shape ethereal images. "A lot of the professional haunters will point to one thing, and that's Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. It's the start of the haunted attraction industry," Morton says. The attraction was revolutionary, as she explains in  Trick or Treat :

What made the Haunted Mansion so successful and so influential, however, was not its similarity to haunted houses and "dark rides" (that is, tawdry carnival haunted houses) of the past, but its use of startling new technologies and effects. Ghosts were no longer simply sheets hung in a tree, but were instead actual shimmering translucent figures that moved, spoke and sang. A witch wasn't just a rubber-masked figure bent over a fake cauldron, but a completely realistic bodiless head floating in a crystal ball, conducting a complex séance.

Within a few years, the haunted house had spread across the country. The United States Junior Chamber, also known as Jaycees, became famous for raising money through its haunted houses. (The fundraising venture was successful enough to spawn its own how-to guide.) In California, Knott's Berry Farm began hosting its own Halloween night attractions, which soon transformed into a multi-week slate of events. Every year, a man named Bob Burns attracted national media attention for  his detailed recreations of classic horror movies . Evangelical Christians even made their own anti-Halloween attractions; Jerry Falwell and Liberty University introduced one of the first " hell houses " in 1972.

As Hollywood began to embrace slasher movies like  Halloween ,  A Nightmare on Elm Street , and  Friday the 13th , the haunted house industry reaped the benefits. The horror boom fueled a demand for scary attractions, not to mention cross-promotional advertisements. "If you went to a haunted house in the 1980s and 1990s, you would've seen a lot of Freddy Krueger, Jason, Pinhead. The haunted house industry really followed the movie industry at that time," Larry Kirchner, president of  Haunted House Association , a trade group for haunted house operators, tells Smithsonian.com.

Professional haunted houses first emerged as a force in the same era, quickly outspending non-profit groups like the Jaycees. Then, tragedy struck: A fire at a haunted house in New Jersey  trapped and killed eight teenagers . In the aftermath of their deaths,  attractions were shut down , and politicians enacted  stronger safety regulations.  Volunteer organizations struggled to compete against new competition under tougher rules. Soon, many were forced out of business. It was a watershed moment for the industry, says Kirchner: "The Jaycees got pushed out because their haunted houses were fairly basic. It was based on the premise that people would volunteer, but when you have people opening big haunted houses with lots of advertising, that's hard," he says.

During the next two decades, the number of professional haunted houses erupted. Kirchner estimates that roughly 2,700 of them operated nationwide last year. A large haunted house attraction can reportedly earn  $3 million during the Halloween season , and the industry is worth  $300 million , according to an NBC report.

These days, haunted houses are no longer just about creepy characters and hyper-realistic horror. Instead, the industry has flocked to all sorts of new, extreme frights:  zombie runs ,  escape games , and  experiences seemingly designed to traumatize . How long will these successes last? Can the haunted house last another half-century? And if it does, what will it look like?

Kirchner doubts that the haunted house is here to stay. "If I was going to guess, I'd say no," he says. "Every business will eventually fail, so we just want to last as long as we possibly can."

A Halloween without haunted houses? Now that's a scary thought.

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Chris Heller is the former assistant digital editor, humanities, for Smithsonian magazine.

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Find Halloween Printables | TPT

Learn more about halloween teaching resources, teach with halloween printables from tpt.

Halloween is a time for costumes, candy, and spooky fun. But did you know it can also be a fantastic opportunity for teaching and learning? Halloween printables offer a range of engaging and educational resources to help students of all ages celebrate the holiday while expanding their knowledge and skills. In this article, we'll explore the importance of Halloween printables, the different types of printables available, and how to use them effectively in various settings.

The Importance of Halloween Printables

Halloween printables are more than just fun and games. They serve several educational purposes and can be a valuable addition to any teaching environment.

• Educational Benefits

Printables can help students practice essential skills like reading, writing, and problem-solving. They can also reinforce math and science concepts through themed activities and worksheets. By incorporating Halloween themes, these printables can capture students' attention and make learning more enjoyable.

• Enhancing Creativity

Many Halloween printables encourage artistic expression and creativity. Coloring pages, crafts, and design activities provide students with an opportunity to explore their imagination while developing fine motor skills and artistic abilities.

• Teaching Cultural Significance

Halloween printables can also help students learn about the history and cultural significance of the holiday. They can explore the origins of Halloween, its traditions, and how it is celebrated in different parts of the world.

• Classroom Ideas

In the classroom, Halloween printables can be used as a supplement to your curriculum or as a fun break from regular coursework. You can include them as part of your lesson plans, offer them as an optional activity for early finishers, or use them as a basis for group projects and collaborative work.

• Homeschooling and Remote Learning

For homeschooling or remote learning, Halloween printables can add a festive touch to your daily lessons. They can be used to reinforce concepts, practice skills, or provide an opportunity for creative expression. You can even use them as a reward for completed assignments or as a means of encouraging students to stay engaged with their work.

• Halloween Parties and Events

Halloween printables can also be a great addition to Halloween parties, events, or community gatherings. They can serve as icebreakers, entertainment, or a creative way to incorporate learning into a festive atmosphere.

Fun Halloween Activities and Themes

Explore a variety of Halloween printables for haunted houses, pumpkins, Halloween parties, and trick or treating. These resources will not only engage your students or children but also provide a creative and educational twist to your Halloween celebrations.

• Designing your own haunted house

Encourage creativity and imagination by having your students or children design their own haunted house. Provide them with halloween printable templates that feature different rooms, furniture, and spooky decorations. They can then cut and assemble their haunted house, creating a unique, personalized experience.

• Haunted house coloring pages

Haunted house coloring pages are a great way to explore different spooky settings and practice fine motor skills. These Halloween coloring pages often include intricate details, such as cobwebs, ghosts, and skeletons, that will keep kids entertained and engaged.

• Haunted house educational activities

Turn haunted house fun into an educational experience by incorporating math, language arts, and problem-solving activities. For example, use printable escape room puzzles set in a haunted house or have students solve spooky word problems or riddles. Pumpkin carving stencils

Carving pumpkins is a Halloween tradition, and printable stencils can make the process easier and more enjoyable. Provide a variety of stencils, from simple to complex, to suit different skill levels and interests.

• Pumpkin coloring pages

Pumpkin coloring pages are another creative way to enjoy the Halloween season. These printables often include pumpkins with expressive faces, patterns, and scenes that will captivate children's imaginations.

• Pumpkin-themed learning activities

Use a pumpkin-themed printable to teach a variety of subjects, from counting and addition to reading and writing. For example, have students practice their writing skills with pumpkin-themed story prompts or use pumpkin number cards for math games.

• DIY party decorations

Hosting a Halloween party for your classroom? Use printables to create DIY party decorations. From banners and signs to halloween coloring sheets to cute labels for trick or treat bags, you'll find a wealth of ideas that can be customized for your event.

• Printable party games

Keep your students entertained with Halloween games, such as scavenger hunts, word searches, bingo, or a classic game of trivia. These games will not only provide hours of so much fun but also encourage teamwork and community building with friends.

Get Started with Halloween Printables on TPT

Halloween printables are a valuable resource for teaching and learning, offering a range of educational benefits while making the holiday fun and engaging. With so many types available, there's something for everyone, whether you're a classroom teacher, homeschooling parent, or simply looking for ways to celebrate the season with your whole family. Don't miss out on the opportunity to incorporate these festive and educational tools into your Halloween party and teaching this year!

Frequently asked questions

Are halloween printables suitable for all age groups.

Yes, Halloween resources come in a wide variety of age-appropriate designs and difficulty levels. You can find resources for young children, middle schoolers, high school students, and even adults.

Do I need any special equipment to use Halloween printables?

You'll need a printer and paper to print your chosen resources. Some printables may also require additional materials, such as scissors, glue, or coloring supplies.

Can I create my Halloween printables?

Yes, you can create resources using design software or online tools. This allows you to customize your resources to suit your specific needs and preferences to maximize your halloween fun for no extra cost.

Are Halloween printables free?

TPT offers free halloween printables as well as ones available for purchase. This includes individual resources as well as resource bundles. Be sure to explore your options and choose resources that fit your budget and needs.

What are popular themes for Halloween coloring pages

Some super easy ideas for printable coloring pages that kids love:

• Pumpkins and Jack-o-Lanterns
• Ghosts and goblins
• Witches and wizards
• Spiders and spider webs
• Haunted houses and graveyards
• Bats and owls
• Skeletons and skulls
• Zombies and monsters
• Scary masks and costumes.

These themes are often associated with Halloween and can provide a fun and spooky coloring activity for kiddos and adults alike. Each of these images might be accompanied by writing that says: "Happy Halloween".

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Halloween History and 10 Fun Facts

Filed Under: Best Practices , Market Research , Shopper

Derek Bertelsen

Senior Project Manager, Field Services

The holiday we know as Halloween started as a pre-Christian Celtic festival called Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “sow-win”), annually held around the first of November to celebrate last day of harvest and to welcome in the dark half of the year. The Celts believe that, as we moved from the warmth of autumn to the chill of winter, the dead and the living worlds would overlap, and that goblins and ghouls would roam the earth again. So, dressing up as demons was a defense against any real demon you may encounter roaming the Earth; they would think you were one of them.

Fast forward to the 1840s with the advent of the Ireland potato famine which brought millions of Halloween-loving immigrants across the Atlantic. Americans soon started embracing the traditions of the holiday, latching onto the tricks and treats as a means of letting off steam one night a year.

Today, Halloween is the second-biggest commercial holiday in America. This year, Americans are expected to spend nearly $9 billion on this ghoulish holiday, with $2.6 billion being spent on candy alone. And while Halloween may have previously been thought of as a day for children to dress up, the holiday is more popular with adults. Today, over 70% of adults celebrate Halloween and spend just as much money on candy and costumes.  

We’ve gathered 10 Fun Facts we’re sharing about Halloween:

• Candy Corn’s original name was Chicken Feed, which was created in 1880 by Wunderlee Candy Company employee George Renninger. Wunderlee was the first to sell the candy, followed by Goelitz Confectionery Company (now Jelly Belly Candy Co.) who has been producing the tri-colored candies since 1898. Candy Corn is one of the most popular Halloween candies with Americans purchasing over 20 million pounds each year.
• 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkins are produced in the US each year. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the state of Illinois has more than 15,000 acres devoted to growing pumpkins, and the state produces up to five times more pumpkins than any other state.
• The act of trick or treating has been around since medieval times. Known then as “guising,” young people wore masks and full costumes and asked for food or money in exchange for poems, songs, and other tricks.
• The origins of the phrase “trick or treat” are difficult to trace, but the custom had been established by the early 1950s when trick or treating was referenced in a Peanuts comic strip. In 1952, Disney produced a cartoon called “Trick or Treat” featuring Donald Duck and his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
• The name “Jack-O-Lantern” first originated from an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack who tricked the Devil over and over again. When Jack died, he was forced to walk the Earth with only a carved-out turnip and burning coal to help light his way. Pumpkins were easier to come by in the United States, so no more turnip carving.
• The most popular costumes in 2019 are anticipated to be taken straight from recent blockbuster films. You can expect to see the title character from Stephen King’s IT and characters from the Marvel universe this season.  Learn which kids costumes our YouthBeat ® team predicts will be popular this year in our blog “Trick or Treat: Who’s There?”
• According to the National Confectioners Association, chocolate candy is the most popular for Halloween, with 68% of people saying it’s their favorite treat . About three-quarters of a trick-or-treaters loot is made up of chocolate. 
• The movie “Halloween” was made in only 21 days in 1978 on a very limited budget of $325,000. That original film went on to make $70 million at the box office and launched an incredibly successful franchise.
• The Haunted House Association estimates that the U.S. is home to about 1,200 seasonal haunted attractions that pull in up to $500 million a year.
• Unless it’s a scary movie, a full moon on Halloween is very rare. Since 1950, a full moon on Halloween has occurred exactly three times: in 1955, 1974 and 2001. But get ready: The next one is coming up in 2020!  

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Did you know: Our ancestors celebrated New Year on November 1st

Halloween in England was first known as Mischief Night . It was celebrated on 4 November. Find out more about Mischief Night.

Find out about the superstitions surrounding Halloween on our Halloween superstitions page

Comments about Halloween 2008

"I went trick or treating with my brother but I didn't have a bag so I used my witches hat!!!"

"I'm not allowed to go trick or treating. It is so unfair."

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16 April 2024 • Research Gillespie '24 Debuts "Four Million of Our Brethren" Display By Ella Weiss '24

Lucas Gillespie '24 

“Four Million of Our Brethren” tracks the history of enslavement and emancipation in Ontario County, N.Y., exploring untold stories through a curated collection of archival materials.

Lucas Gillespie ’24, who created the display as part of his Critical Museum Studies minor capstone project, says the exhibit pays “tribute to New York’s forgotten and oppressed identities, the men and women who were brought here against their will and lived in bondage under a system of institutional exploitation. While we cannot repeat the past, we can use its shortcomings to move forward as a region, a state, and a country.”

Learn more about the exhibit .  

Gillespie spent the fall semester conducting research at Historic Geneva, Ontario County Historical Society and the HWS Archives. The documents he compiled range from physical photographs, to certificates, obituaries, advertisements and excerpts. With Historic Geneva, he worked alongside museum and archive staff to transcribe a 19th-century diary while also contributing photographs for Historic Geneva’s “Geneva Then and Now” exhibit.

Through the exhibit, Gillespie situates his audience physically and mentally in this era in the Finger Lakes Region.

“When we think of slavery and its relation to New York, often what is discussed is either colonial enslavement efforts by Dutch settlers, or abolitionist efforts which took place in Western New York by the likes of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass,” he explains. “While this information is important to the history of the state, it was important for me to show that the Finger Lakes was not just a region of freedom, but one which played an instrumental role in keeping the institution of enslavement alive, even past 1827 (when New York outlawed slavery, due in part to gradual emancipation laws).”

Gillespie is a history major with a focus in American history, and a museum studies minor. He is in the process of completing an Honors thesis examining the ways in which New Yorkers understood the Erie Canal during its construction between 1817 and 1825. Gillespie studied in Budapest, Hungary during his junior year and has an upcoming photo exhibit in the HWS Center for Global Education about his semester abroad.

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