Halloween in the United States

Between 1840 and 1900, millions of Irish fled the island’s poverty and starvation, in the first great Catholic emigration wave to the United States. In their baggage was a rich mixture of religious and popular folk beliefs. In America, one Halloween custom took on a new form. Instead of turnips, people took up the larger and hollow pumpkin for carving their ghost, or All Souls lamps. The native North American pumpkin gave Halloween the face we all recognize today. By the turn of the 20th century, Halloween was well on its way to becoming an American festival. In a Halloween story about vampires, American writer Julian Hawthorne called it the carnival time of disembodied spirits. That’s what Halloween become, a kind of carnival in autumn. One big night of European freedom, when people can test limits in the land of unlimited opportunity. What’s a hippie? A hippie is a person who acts like a hippie. Who wants peace in the world and has long hair. Okay, do it. You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time. Well, you ain’t nothin’ but a hound-. You ain’t no friend of mine. Who are you? What? I’m a farmer. You’re a farmer? Yes. You’re a farmer? Oh! Through it all lurks a familiar figure, reminding us of Halloween’s beginnings. How strange that a festival with roots in commemorating the dead took on the adjective “happy” in America. Happy Halloween, you little kids. Halloween has now become the second-largest commercial holiday in America, next to Christmas. And it’s not just for kids. There we go. Now he has got eyes. I like to decorate, and I like to scare the kids. Snapping for apples and fishing for coins are long-gone almost everywhere. The Halloween horror business has replaced such innocent images.