I was wondering, when did All Hallow’s Eve become Hallowe’en? When did we introduce the tradition of kids dressing up and going door to door for candy, jack-o-lanterns, etc.?
The History Channel’s web site has an excellent History of Halloween exhibit (their term).
For some reason, this question (or similar ones) are very popular at this time of year.
I present the following examples, not to make you wade through lots of text, but because most of them shed slightly different light on the topic.
what is the real history of Halloween ? 09-10-2001
Evidence for the Gregory IV / Samhain connection? 10-17-2001
Halloween – how international is it? 10-31-2001
Christian Fundamentalists vs. Halloween 10-28-2002
Halloween & Christianity 10-31-2002
The short (perhaps too short) answer is that Trick-or-Treating came into the U.S. with the Irish immigrants, but that it has nothing to do with ancient Celtic religions or Samhain (a connection that was erroneously created by a couple of late 19th Century British authors).
Cool–thanks for the links, guys!
(Unfortunately, the History Channel repeats the pretty well discredited “Druid” connection. If you skip the “ancient” part of their narrative and start with the section referring to All Saints Day, you’ll have a better idea of the holiday’s history.)
Will do 