Happy Halloween!

I heard a rustle in the hall.It sounded like the swish of a taffeta skirt. I looked up at the door and saw the figure of a woman go past. She had on a black taffeta dress and I didn't see any head. I called out, "Who's there?" Of course, nobody answered…Just as the figure reached the door of the living room, it disappeared…

"Ghost Story,"
Interview with "Mrs. Laura M.,"
Dorothy West, interviewer,
November 18, 1938.
American Life Histories, 1936-1940

On the night of October 31, many Americans celebrate the traditions of Halloween by dressing in costumes and telling tales of witches and ghosts. Children parade from house to house collecting candy by the glow of jack-o'-lanterns and the light of the moon.

The history of Halloween in America has a darker side however. For most of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, Halloween was more trick than treat. Bands of mischief makers roamed city streets and country roads blowing horns and wreaking havoc upon residences and businesses alike. Often special police were appointed to keep damage to a minimum.

October's "Bright Blue Weather":
A Good Time to Read!
Chicago, Illinois,
Albert M. Bender, artist,
(Date stamped on verso)
August 30, 1940.
Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943

An interview with William Flynn in American Life Histories, 1936-1940, records a joke Flynn played on local boys while special policing on a cold Halloween night. After getting the keys to the town garage, he built a fire there to warm himself. Then, Flynn slipped out and told the boys he would leave the garage unlocked for them to use as well.

In a short time there was about thirty boys in there so I just locked the door and kept them there until breakfast time the next morning and I believe I had every boy in town that was out Hallowe'eing for there wasn't a thing disturbed in the town that night.

"William Flynn,"
R. Stuart Warnock, interviewer,
October 5, 1938.
American Life Histories, 1936-1940

Writing about his nineteenth-century boyhood in Minnesota, Frank G. O'Brien recalls Halloween as a night when "the leaders of the fun took matters into their own hands and the whole town was at their mercy." In addition to switching signs between the town doctor and the local undertaker, pranksters thought nothing of causing major inconveniences. After one Halloween revel, O'Brien writes:

The next morning the plank sidewalk on a business thoroughfare was found to be at least five feet from the ground and as securely braced and nailed as if it had been placed there by order of the city council, R. B. Graves, mayor, and attested by W. W. Wales, city clerk.

This "elevation" would often extend for nearly a block at different locations in front of business houses, and necessitated considerable work on the part of the proprietor and clerks to get matters in shape to receive the morning customers.

Frank G. O'Brien, "Old Time Halloween Doings,"
Minnesota Pioneer Sketches: From the Personal Recollections and Observations of a Pioneer Resident, 1904.
Pioneering the Upper Midwest, ca. 1820-1910

Houdini and the Ghost of Abraham Lincoln,
circa 1920-1926.
The American Variety Stage, 1870-1920

Is magic only a matter of trickery or can spirits really be "summoned from the vasty deep?" Conjuror Harry Houdini developed to its fullest the performance potential of magic tricks, but he also exposed the fraudulent methods of mediums who claimed to communicate with "the beyond." Houdini emphasized that magic is a purely human skill:

I have spent a goodly part of my life in study and research. During the last thirty years I have read every single piece of literature on the subject of Spiritualism that I could. I have accumulated one of the largest libraries in the world on psychic phenomena, Spiritualism, magic, witchcraft, demonology, evil spirits, etc., some of the material going back as far as 1489, and I doubt if anyone in the world has so complete a library on modern Spiritualism, but nothing I ever read concerning the so-called Spiritualistic phenomena has impressed me as being genuine.

Harry Houdini, A Magician Among the Spirits, 1924.

When he died on October 31, 1926, Houdini left his extraordinary collection of spiritualistic works to the Library of Congress.

• Learn more about Genius of Escape. Search on spirit in the Houdini section of American Variety Stage, 1870-1920 to find images of the magician and escape artist demonstrating the illusions of mediums. View the photographic series, "Houdini Makes Spirit Hands."
• Read Today in History features on Harry Houdini and the Salem Witch Trials.

  
  House in Horse Creek Decorated for Halloween,
  Horse Creek, West Virginia,
  Lyntha Scott Eiler, photographer,
  October 5, 1996.
  Tending the Commons

• Scare yourself silly. American folklore is rich with spirits, ghosts, and witches. Search on witch and ghost in American Life Histories, 1936-1940 to read tales of alledged witches and accounts of spirit sightings.

  "Ghost Story"*
  told by Moses "Clear Rock" Platt,
  The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip
  
  Real Audio format
  
  wav Format, 5.8 Mb

• Listen to fiddler Henry Reed play "Witch of the Wave Reel." A search on the term witch in Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier will surface a of transcription of this tune as well as its audio playback.
• Sing a spooky song. Search the collection Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885 on the terms witch or ghost to find musical selections such as "Denny Malone's Ghost" by M. H. McChesney, 1871, and "Witches Flight" by H. M. Russell, 1878.
• Search the collection American Variety Stage, 1870-1920 to find theatrical skits, such as Spooks (1912) by Bayone Whipple and Walter Huston.
• Watch movies of magic and madness. Search the online collections in the motion picture format to view early films with the themes of magic and ghosts. Examples are Uncle Josh in a Spooky Hotel and Hooligan Assists the Magician from the collection Inventing Entertainment: The Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies and Dud Leaves Home from Origins of American Animation.
• Learn more about Halloween from The American Folklife Center, and locate books about the folklore of witches in the selected bibliography on Halloween and Related Topics.

*The Library of Congress presents these documents as part of the record of the past. These primary historical documents reflect the attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. The Library of Congress does not endorse the views expressed in these collections, which may contain materials offensive to some readers.