WEBVTT - Halloween Special 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:13.480 This is Lee Habbib and this is our American Stories, 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:16.160 and we tell stories about everything here on this show, 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:20.880 including you, or send them to our American Stories dot com. 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:23.880 Today we're going to bring to light the Halloween stories 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:26.840 that have been hiding in the dark, answering the question 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:31.560 why do we participate in these strange celebrations every Halloween season. 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:34.040 Here to tell the story are two of the foremost 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:39.199 authorities on Halloween, Leslie Vanatyne and Lisa Morton. Leslie is 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.800 the author of Halloween and American Holiday and American History. 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.920 Lisa is the author of Trick Retreat, A History of Halloween. 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:52.839 Here's Leslie and Lisa with the story of Halloween. I'm 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:57.360 Leslie Vanatyne. I've been looking at, researching and writing about 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.640 Halloween for over thirty five years now and it's still 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:06.360 interesting to me. And so I guess if you wanted 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:10.319 to start the story of Halloween, you could go back 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:16.040 to Sawan, which was a time of year in northwestern Europe. 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:22.200 That's Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany. It means summer's end, Swen 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:24.480 means summer's end, and it was time of year around 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:30.000 November first where tribes would move their livestock back to 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:33.759 winter quarters to keep them safe, and they would gather together. 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:36.800 It was kind of a little bit like our Thanksgiving 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:41.160 in that people would come together, they'd play games, eight drink, 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:45.319 tells stories, and because it was a big community kind 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:49.320 of day or festival, the dead were naturally part of it. 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:54.040 And there was a belief that the other world was 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:58.440 especially present at this time, at summer's end, because we 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:03.559 were going into the dark and dangerous season, and it's 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.760 always good to consult with the ancestors when you're going 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:11.320 into something dangerous. Salon, which by the way, is spelled 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.480 sam h Ai in it looks like it should be 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:18.240 pronounced sam Haine, but it's not. It is Salon, was 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:22.600 a day that they did indeed celebrate on October thirty first. 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.519 Their festivals started when the sun went down, so it 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:32.120 began actually on the evening of October thirty first, and 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.200 then spilled over into November first, And it was a 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.639 night when they believed that the veil between the worlds 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.200 was at its thinnest and that things could cross over 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.520 and cause real mischief. On that night, they believed in 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:49.600 really malicious fairies called the She and a lot of 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.520 people have heard of the banshee that actually translates to 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:58.120 a female fairy, and these fairies were really nasty little things. 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:01.040 We're not talking Disney tinker all kind of things here. 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:03.680 We're talking things that would come over and burn down 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:08.120 their palaces. There's a famous story about that. There's another 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:11.359 story about a hero who is sent out by the 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.480 king on Sawan Eve to place a chord around the 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.280 foot of a corpse, which is something that no one 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:20.480 else has been able to do. And when he does this, 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:23.440 the corpse comes to life and he lets it down 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.280 and it takes it out to get a drink. It's thirsty, 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.919 and it spits on people and kills them. This is 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:33.799 an absolutely terrifying story, so it definitely had a very 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:40.320 macab element. Sawan did. And then when the Christians missionaries 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:44.080 came in and they were anxious to convert these celts 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.400 to their faith, and they had a doctrine of not 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.840 just trying to stamp out existing celebrations, but of trying 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.920 to co opt them. And Pope Gregory the third was 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:59.040 one of the big people who was behind this doctrine 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:03.720 of trying to cop these existing celebrations, and so they 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:07.520 sent the missionaries in and they moved the date of 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.240 their Saints celebration. Originally, All Saints Day was celebrated on 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:16.280 May thirteenth, which was an old Roman holiday associated with 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.440 the dead, but they moved it to November first, and 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:24.880 so it would begin on the eve before, and they 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:27.520 did that to try and co opt Salon, and it 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.880 was not entirely successful. Interestingly enough, so a few centuries 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:35.839 after that they added a second holiday, which is All 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:40.240 Soul's Day, and that actually happens on November second. All 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:43.760 Soul's Day also served the purpose of letting everyone celebrate 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.600 their deceased loved ones, not just saints, so it had 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:49.880 kind of a dual role there, and that became much 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.840 more successful now they were starting to convert the Celts 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:57.160 and so forth. And All Saints Day doesn't have a 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.920 lot to do with Halloween, but it did give Halloween 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.039 its name, for All Saints Day is known in some 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.880 countries as All Hallows. All Hallows means Saint or holy one, 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.480 and so All Hallows Eve would be the eve before 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:14.440 All Hallows Day all Saints Day. So Halloween comes from 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.720 All Saints Day the name Halloween, but Halloween gets it's 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.920 juju from All Souls Day, and so here you have 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.200 the same kind of thing going on as what's going 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.719 on with Sauan is that the church recognizes there's a 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.000 time every year to honor the dead. There's several times, 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.839 but in the fall as winters approaching. All Souls Day 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:38.800 was instituted in about the eleventh century, and people have 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:43.599 been visiting graveyards and remembering their loved ones and thinking 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.680 of the dead for the last thousand years on that 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.600 day and still do, of course in many Catholic countries. 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:53.240 There's still visitations to the graveyards. It's an important holiday 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.160 and it's important time to remember the dead. So that 0:05:56.200 --> 0:06:01.040 comes along from Saoan through the Church and becomes very 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:06.200 popular throughout medieval times. So doesn't have anything to do 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:10.400 with modern Halloween. Really they're separate. But what does is 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:15.520 the Eve of All Saints Day, the night going into 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:20.640 this holy set of holidays which is Halloween, and like 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:26.240 Marty Grass to Lent, Halloween is to these really important 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.080 church days, it's the time to have a party. It's 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:34.200 secular time. It's fun time. It's gathered together, play games, eat, drink, 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:37.839 tell stories before you go into the serious church holidays, 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:41.400 we're going to spend a lot of time indoors and praying. 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.080 And you've been listening to Leslie Vannatyne and Lisa Morton 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:48.760 tell the story of Halloween. I love what they just described. 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.920 Marti Gras is to Lent as Halloween is to All 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.559 Saints Day and all Souls Day. When we come back, 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.599 more of the story of Halloween, how it came to 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:31.560 be what it is today here on our American Stories. Folks, 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.160 if you love the great American stories we tell and 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:37.040 love America like we do, we're asking you to become 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.760 a part of the our American Stories family. If you 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.280 agree that America is a good and great country, please 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.520 make a donation. A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:49.400 seventy six cents is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.440 Go to our American Stories dot com now and go 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:54.600 to the donate button and help us keep the great 0:07:54.640 --> 0:08:09.280 American stories coming. That's our American Stories dot Com. And 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.400 we continue with our American Stories and the story of 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:17.640 Halloween came to be. Are two in house experts, Leslie 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:23.200 Bannatyne and Lisa Morton continue with the story. So when 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:29.120 the church theorized about purgatory. This was a place where 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:33.360 souls went to wait until they could either send to 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:39.120 heaven or not. And when purgatory became an important concept 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:43.240 in the church, it was critical for people to pray 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:45.960 for their dead because if the harder they prayed, the 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:50.080 more they prayed, the easier their loved ones would have 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:54.040 to go into heaven. So the church actually created this 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:58.640 interactive relationship between the living and the dead. It became 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.760 part of Halloween until this day. So if you pray 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:04.760 for the dead, you can help them to heaven. There 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.120 was a custom of begging house to house that was 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:14.760 associated with All Souls Day, and in several of these processions, 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:18.920 people could ask house to house for soul cakes. Give me, 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:21.360 give me a piece of bread or a soul cake, 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.120 and I'll say a prayer for the one you have lost. 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:28.320 So there was this nice exchange, and it's also set 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:30.560 a kind of precedent for a house to house begging 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.160 that we still see a Halloween today, only it's candies 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:37.120 and there's no prayers for the dearly departed. Now we 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:41.480 have this thing coming in called All Hollows Eve, which 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:46.319 eventually gets abbreviated into the name we know Halloween, and 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.160 it was for the first few centuries and we're talking 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:54.280 now around probably the fourteen fifteen hundreds. It was a 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.319 day that was somewhat similar to Swan, that was celebrated 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:01.400 with feasting, with gatherings, with playing games. We know, for example, 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:05.640 that bobbing for apples was around really early on, but 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.880 we are also getting them keeping that more maccab element. 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:12.480 And one of the classic descriptions we have of an 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:17.400 early Halloween celebration is a Robert Burns poem from seventeen 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:22.000 eighty five called Halloween, and it talks about telling ghost 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.320 stories and playing these fortune telling games. At the time, 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.960 young people were obsessed with learning who they would end 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.000 up marrying, so they would play these fortune telling games 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.560 on Halloween night that would tell them who they might 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:38.400 end up marrying. In the games sometimes were very maccab. 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:42.280 They might consist of calling on the devil. Some of 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.200 them were more innocent. For example, they would set nuts 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.440 out in front of a fireplace and they would name 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.000 each of the nuts for a specific person, and depending 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.880 on which nutcracked first, would indicate who they would end 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:57.560 up marrying. And in fact, that was so popular that 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:00.920 in some parts of the British Isles was called Nutcrack 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:04.040 Night rather than even Halloween or All Saints Eve or 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:09.600 Old Hallows Eve. Another thing that was interesting about All 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.839 Souls in All Saints was that it was Catholic, and 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:19.640 so in Ireland, no problem whatsoever. But when Protestantism came 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:25.920 in Martin Luther and in Scotland became Protestant and it 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:32.200 in Protestantism ghosts are slights of Satan, and so in 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:38.160 Scotland you have this incredibly rich and scary superstition about 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:41.559 witches because if there were beings out that you couldn't 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.439 see at this time of year, they were not good. 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:48.240 In Scotland and Calvinism, these are agents of the devil, 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.320 and the agents of the devil that they fixed on 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.960 were witches. And so in Calvinist Scotland you got this 0:11:56.040 --> 0:12:00.280 incredible witchcraft lore wells that stuck with Halloween to today. 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:02.720 You know, that's where we first got the Halloween Witch. 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:06.840 The first Halloween icon maybe is the ghost that you know, 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:11.320 you're the spirit of someone in your past who's passed on, 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:14.680 but the second is definitely the witch, and that came 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:21.760 from Calvinist Scotland. So with this iconography of witchcraft in 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:26.880 its association with Halloween. It's a nighttime thing, right, Halloween 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.720 is a nighttime holiday. You have to celebrate it mostly 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:34.720 after dark, and witchcraft is kind of something that's that 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:39.040 happens in the dark, and so nocturnal animals and creatures 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.720 get associated with it just over time and throughout mythology 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:47.800 and folklore. So the images of the witch came down 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:51.880 through the centuries and got more and more associated with 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:56.400 cats and bats and moons and all sorts of things 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.960 that you would find in the dark. That had a 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.280 lot to do with just how people portrayed Halloween later 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:06.040 in magazines when they were drawings of it, and even 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:09.679 later than that in the nineteen thirties in America, while 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:13.120 you have this explosion of postcards and they needed graphic images, 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:15.720 and all of a sudden we grew up with the witch, 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:19.319 the moon, the cat, the bat being part of Halloween. 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.600 And there is a final thing that cements the place 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:26.800 of witches in Halloween, which is much more recent, which 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:30.280 a lot of people may not realize how important this was. 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:32.960 There is a nineteen thirty nine film that comes out 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:37.320 called The Wizard of Oz and Margaret Hamilton's portrayal of 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:39.760 the wicked Witch, and that with the green skin and 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:42.840 the huge black pointed hat and the black cloak and 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:47.240 so forth, really created our image of the witch as 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.160 we have it now. Prior to that, if you look 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:54.880 at vintage drawings of Halloween witches, they're often in red, 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.880 and they are usually depicted as being elderly but not 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:03.400 quite so cronish looking, although there were also sexy young 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:06.400 witches that were popular in the nineteen tens and twenties. 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.280 And of course the black Cat and the cauldron are 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:15.880 also Halloween icons that come along with the witch. And 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.280 there's also a story by Edgar Allan Poe which cements 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:24.280 the reputation of the black Cat in regards to Halloween. 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.080 So at this point people might be wondering, well, how 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.880 does that end up becoming associated with things like the pumpkin, 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.520 which is kind of now our king of Halloween icons. 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:40.200 The pumpkin also comes to us from Ireland. Obviously they 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:42.840 don't have pumpkins and Ireland pumpkins are a New World 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:47.640 fruit and they had turnips though, and the Irish loved 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:52.160 to play pranks on Halloween, and when the Irish came 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:56.000 to America in the mid nineteenth century. In the eighteen forties, 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:58.800 because of famine, they brought a lot of these halloween 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:00.520 things with them, and one of the the things they 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.520 brought with them was pranks. And one of their favorite 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.440 pranks was to take these turnups that grew in Ireland 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:10.200 and carve a sort of spooky looking face into them 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.560 and then put a candle inside of that, and they 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.640 would set that out somewhere at night on Halloween night, 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:22.560 where an unwary traveler or an unwary homeowner might stumble 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:25.200 across this thing. And you can imagine that if you're 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:27.560 out late at night and you suddenly turn a corner 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:29.440 and you see this glowing face, it would give you 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.280 a bit of a start. So they brought that with 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:34.680 them to the New World, and of course when they 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.480 arrived here and found these gorgeous, huge pumpkins, they were 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:42.720 the perfect thing to replace the turnups. But there's another 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.680 thing that's associated with the pumpkin that's really interesting, which 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:50.160 is the legendary trickster story where we get the name 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:54.840 Jack o Lantern comes from a famous legend of Jack 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:59.120 the Trickster, and Jack was a blacksmith who had three 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.240 times trick the devil out of coming to claim his soul. 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:06.280 But when Jack finally dies, it turns out that neither 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:10.040 Heaven nor Hell wants anything to do with Jack. The 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.640 devil agrees only to throw him a burning hell limber 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.840 to light his way. And so Jack places this ember 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.960 and this carved gourd and uses it to light his 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.920 way as he eternally roams the earth. And that's how 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.600 the name Jack o lantern came about, being associated with 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:33.640 these carved pumpkins. In colonial America, Halloween was not a thing. 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:38.880 There were Halloween, the secular holiday, the eve of all Hallows, 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.520 was not anything that anyone would celebrate. We were Puritans, 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:46.120 you know, we didn't even celebrate Christmas. This was not 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.560 going to happen. And we've been listening to Leslie Vannatyne 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:53.080 and Lisa Morton tell the story of Halloween, and I'm 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.360 learning things that I never knew about the Jack o' lantern, 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:00.200 for instance, or the pumpkin. Great storytelling more of it 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:03.320 to come, the story of Halloween, how it came to 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:07.640 be here in America, such a big, big celebration day 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:31.920 here on our American story. Folks, if you love the stories, 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.960 we tell about this great country and especially the stories 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.840 of America's rich past. Know that all of our stories 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:41.560 about American history, from war to innovation, culture and faith 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.680 are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.000 a place where students study all the things that are 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.440 beautiful in life and all the things that are good 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.200 in life. And if you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.760 will come to you with their free and terrific online courses. 0:17:55.040 --> 0:18:08.639 Go to Hillsdale dot du to learn more. And we 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:12.239 continue here with our American stories and the story of 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:16.480 Halloween as brought to us by Leslie Bennetteyne and Lisa Morton, 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.640 both prolific authors and experts on the subject of all 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.600 things Halloween. It's history right up to modern day times. 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:29.280 Here's Leslie and Lisa to continue with the story. As 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:32.720 the colonies developed, and as the new nation developed, different 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.960 colonies had different religious bents, and so in Catholic colonies 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:39.320 like Maryland, for example, yes there was all Saints and 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:43.080 all Souls stay, but that's not Halloween. It's all Hallows 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:45.920 in name, but it's a church holiday and it had 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.200 nothing to do with witches and ghosts and Pumpkinson anything 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.639 that we would recognize. Those are church holidays. The first 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:56.880 was the Civil War when so many people had lost 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:01.120 so many family members, and in that war more than 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:07.760 many many many other subsequent wars combined, everybody had lost 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:12.399 somebody and they didn't know if they were dead or alive. 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:15.720 There was so many missing people in the Civil War, 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.119 So you know, where's my husband, where's my brother? Is 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:22.200 he coming home? Where's my son? I can't find my son. 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:29.200 And there was a huge interest in the dead, in spiritualism, 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:34.200 in ghosts. All of this became really important to post 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:40.240 Civil War Victorians who were bereft, So keep that in mind. 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:44.680 We loved ghosts at that time. And then what put 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:48.760 the nail in the coffin was printing became cheap at 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:51.520 that time. In the late eighteen hundreds, there were a 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:57.399 million magazines. I exaggerate slightly. There were a lot of 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:01.280 ladies magazines and newspapers, all of them looking for content. 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:09.320 And when they discovered this ghostly Scottish they thought holiday 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:11.920 that had to do with the spirit world and looking 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:17.600 into the future. They just loved it. And so it 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:23.160 was Victorian hostesses who started throwing the first Halloween themed parties. 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:26.360 So let's get together and play games where we look 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:30.400 into the future. Let's decorate by bringing the outdoors inside. 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:35.199 Let's get cornstocks and pumpkins and all sorts of rural things, 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:38.880 things from the country that we love, and let's throw 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.440 a party on this weird night that we've heard about 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:45.800 this Halloween. So these are all the things that we 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:49.399 have coming over with the holiday. And you might think 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:53.000 that maybe trick or treat, which is I think our 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:58.640 greatest American addition to the holiday, stems directly from all 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.280 of those things. But it acts, act does not. It 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:07.000 comes from pranking. And it's a really strange history of 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.800 how that comes about. The Irish who loved to play 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:15.640 their pranks that caught on a lot in the nineteenth century, 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:20.000 and American kids loved playing pranks, of course, and this 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:23.840 spread throughout the entire country, and at first it was 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:28.040 quite innocent. The prank playing in America was things like 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:30.920 the kids would go out to a farm and they 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.760 would maybe overturn an outhouse or tip over a cow, 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.440 or one of their more elaborate pranks that they loved 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:42.560 was to disassemble a gate and move it and reassemble 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:45.720 at some place like either the main street of the 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:49.439 town or the top of a barn. And in fact, 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:52.880 this one prank was so popular that Halloween was known 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:56.480 as gate Night in many areas, and so tricks are 0:21:56.520 --> 0:21:59.440 really the first part of Halloween that we had in 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:02.440 this kind country. And it was like every kid's right 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:06.800 to go out under cover of darkness and take the 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.800 gates off of their neighbor's pigpens, or pile stones up 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:12.919 in the middle of the street, or put molasses on 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:16.600 the church bench, or remove the church steps, or hang 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:22.040 a rocking chair in the tree, or any number of pranks, 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:27.280 and everyone would say, okay, it's Halloween. It's okay, it's 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:31.919 just kids. So it was all good fun at first. 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:35.240 But then by the twentieth century, as America is becoming 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:39.840 much more urbanized and more populated, these pranks move into 0:22:39.880 --> 0:22:42.840 the cities, and when they move into the cities, they 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:47.639 become much less nice. Now they are about destroying things, 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:54.000 about shattering glass bulbs and windows. They are about setting fires, 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:59.960 tripping pedestrians, and by the thirties they are causing millions 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:02.760 of dollars of damage. And this is also during the 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:05.120 Great Depression, when a lot of these cities don't even 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:07.160 have the money to pay for all of the damage 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:11.440 that's resulting from this vandalism, and a lot of cities 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:15.840 at this point considered dropping Halloween or trying to ban it. 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.840 But fortunately there were a few places where cooler heads 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:23.040 prevailed and said, you know, maybe we can buy these 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:26.240 kids off instead of trying to ban this holiday, because 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:30.400 that could backfire on us, which it would have. And 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:36.439 so every civic organization you can think of, PTA's, Kawana's Moose, 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:45.000 Junior Chamber of Commerce, churches, hospitals, dance clubs, anything through 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:49.480 started to throw Halloween parties for kids to keep them 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:53.760 inside where they could be seen. So Halloween was always 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:57.200 an outside in the dark event, and this was an 0:23:57.200 --> 0:24:02.240 effort to move Halloween indoors, actually to move it more 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:06.440 towards younger children, to help younger children celebrate it. Let's 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:08.240 just take a little bit of the danger out of 0:24:08.240 --> 0:24:11.000 this holiday, keep the kids where we can see them, 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:14.360 and tame it down just a little bit. And there 0:24:14.440 --> 0:24:17.800 was an enormous coast to coast effort to throw Halloween 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:21.120 parties for kids by civic org It's actually very generous, 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:27.000 you know, to do this and to some extent it worked. 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:31.399 I mean, there were creative ideas. Police would drive around 0:24:31.400 --> 0:24:34.359 in their cruisers in one city and hand out candy 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:39.520 preemptively to children so that they wouldn't come throwing cabbages 0:24:39.520 --> 0:24:42.320 at doors or ringing doorbells, just trying to tame the 0:24:42.320 --> 0:24:46.160 whole situation down. Or radio programs sometimes would have call 0:24:46.280 --> 0:24:50.440 in shows where if you were home at say seven 0:24:50.600 --> 0:24:52.920 thirty or eight o'clock and you called in, you could 0:24:53.200 --> 0:24:56.000 win a prize that keeps the child or the teenager 0:24:56.200 --> 0:24:59.639 inside where you can see them. And they got together, 0:24:59.640 --> 0:25:02.439 and they actually put out little pamphlets in many of 0:25:02.440 --> 0:25:05.640 the cities that would tell homeowners how to do this. 0:25:06.600 --> 0:25:12.119 So these little pamphlets would suggest that the homeowners get together. Again. 0:25:12.160 --> 0:25:14.800 We're still during the Great Depression, a lot of homeowners 0:25:14.840 --> 0:25:17.600 don't have money to spare for parties and so forth. 0:25:18.040 --> 0:25:20.480 But if enough of the houses got together in one street, 0:25:20.520 --> 0:25:22.760 they could put something together for the kids. And these 0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:26.479 were called house to house parties. And the way they 0:25:26.480 --> 0:25:29.040 would work was the first house might give the kids 0:25:29.040 --> 0:25:32.200 a very simple costume, probably just a sheet with two 0:25:32.280 --> 0:25:34.840 holes cut in it. The kids would get to be ghost. 0:25:35.320 --> 0:25:38.480 The next house would give the kids, maybe a little 0:25:38.760 --> 0:25:43.359 spooky entertainment, like they'd have the basement, the lights shut off, 0:25:43.440 --> 0:25:45.600 a little thing where the kids would have to go 0:25:45.640 --> 0:25:48.240 through the basement, somebody might jump out and frighten them. 0:25:48.240 --> 0:25:51.160 This becomes kind of the very earliest version of our 0:25:51.200 --> 0:25:55.160 modern haunted attraction. And then the next house would give 0:25:55.160 --> 0:25:59.080 the kids a little treat. Well, this was very popular. 0:25:59.200 --> 0:26:04.520 It caught on very quickly. Everyone started holding parties for kids. 0:26:05.000 --> 0:26:08.240 By nineteen thirty six we get the first mention in 0:26:08.240 --> 0:26:12.080 a national American magazine of the phrase trick retreat, which 0:26:12.160 --> 0:26:16.719 actually probably came down from Canada. The first recorded uses 0:26:16.720 --> 0:26:19.480 we have of it are in Canada, although they are 0:26:19.520 --> 0:26:22.880 not always in relation to kids in an actual costume. 0:26:24.800 --> 0:26:28.000 And you've been listening to Lisa Morton, author of Trick Retreat, 0:26:28.080 --> 0:26:31.960 A History of Halloween, and Leslie Pratt Vantine, author of 0:26:31.960 --> 0:26:35.600 Halloween and American Holiday in American History. By the way, 0:26:35.600 --> 0:26:38.399 both of those books are available on Amazon dot Com 0:26:38.640 --> 0:26:41.159 or are the usual suspects. By all means, pick them up, 0:26:41.240 --> 0:26:45.120 read them great holiday material, great holiday reading material. When 0:26:45.240 --> 0:26:48.639 we come back more of Leslie and Lisa on this 0:26:48.760 --> 0:27:39.920 story of Halloween, and we continue with our American stories 0:27:39.960 --> 0:27:43.119 and the story of Halloween and how it came to be. 0:27:44.000 --> 0:27:48.800 Leslie Benattyne and Lisa Morton continue with the storytelling. Now 0:27:48.840 --> 0:27:52.200