October 2003 Pic of the Month
Halloween: An American Holiday Filled with Unearthly Delights

The Apple-Bee. Harper’s Weekly, November 26, 1859
This young lady attempts a bit of innocent divination at an autumn apple bee. An apple paring thrown over the shoulder would reveal the initial of her future husband.

The Pumpkin Effigy. The Ladies Floral Cabinet, Sept. 1875
Irish immigrants gave us the most memorable symbol of Halloween--the grinning jack-o-lantern.

The Europeans who settled in the American colonies during the 1600s and 1700s brought with them religious beliefs and folk customs that contributed to the development of Halloween traditions in the New World. Anglicans in Virginia celebrated Hallowmas and gathered together in the autumn at fairs and harvest celebrations. Catholics in Maryland observed All Saints’ Day and All Hallows’ Eve as well. For the Puritans of Massachusetts, the occult held both fear and fascination. Mystical ideas and supernatural phenomena were a part of the traditions of the Germans who settled in Pennsylvania. Enslaved African Americans also brought with them a vast array of magical beliefs and superstitions.

Of the immigrant groups that came to America during the 1800s, the Irish had the greatest influence on the celebration of Halloween. For centuries, the Irish had told ghost stories by the fire, visited house to house, and gathered together at midnight to divine the future. They carried lanterns made out of hollowed-out turnips to light their way in the darkness of late autumn. In America, these Irish immigrants gladly substituted the pumpkin, a harvest vegetable native to America. Americans—who had long enjoyed autumn harvest parties where they played fortune-telling games and told ghost stories—quickly adopted many of the Irish customs. The grinning jack-o-lantern, a blend of Irish tradition and American vegetable, would become the symbol of the American Halloween.