The History of Halloween

 

 

This week I will be discussing Halloween, because…. well…. it is Halloween. You may be wondering what the history of Halloween has to do with disability. To be honest, I’m not so sure myself. Hopefully by the time I have finished writing this I will have thought of a connection. Let us begin shall we? Muahaha!

 

Ancient Halloween

What we now know as Halloween began as a Celtic festival 2,000 years ago. The Celts lived in Ireland, Britain, and Northern France at that time (It’s a bit more complicated than that, but for our purposes, this will suffice). In their calendar, 1^st November was the start of the new year. As such, they celebrated the festival of Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “sow-win”), from 31^st October to 1^st November.

There were some very interesting beliefs surrounding the event. For instance, it was thought that for that one day of the year, the souls of the dead would visit their relatives. This is because the barrier between the realms of the living and the dead had been removed. This also allowed for the souls of the deceased of the previous 12 months to pass over to the Otherworld. This all seems fairly pleasant, but the souls of the dead were not the only things that travelled between the two realms. Evil spirits and demons also made their way across to torment the living. I suppose that’s what happens when the gates of hell open. In order to combat this, Druids would light huge hilltop fires and people would disguise themselves as evil spirits, so that the actual evil spirits would leave them alone. Sound familiar? I could go on and on about Samhain and the Celts, but I still have to work my way up to the present day AND make something up about…. sorry, I mean tell you about how Halloween relates to disability.

 

Modern(ish) Halloween

So. How did we get from a Celtic harvest festival 2,000 years ago, to trick-or-treating and horror movies etc.? I will attempt to sum up 2,000 years in the space of a few short paragraphs.

Side note: It has just dawned on me that some readers may be mispronouncing the word Celtic. The ancient people discussed above are Celts (pronounced Kellt, like the name Kelly). Anything related to them is Celtic (pronounced Kell-tick). The basketball team, the Boston Celtics and the Scottish football team, Glasgow Celtic, are both pronounced Cell-tick. I have no idea why.

Anyway, in the 7^th century CE Pope Boniface IV established All Saints’ Day, to be held on 13^th May to honour saints and martyrs. A century later, when the pagan tradition of lighting hilltop fires etc. still continued, Pope Gregory III decided to move All Saints’ Day to 1^st November in order to quash the pagan ritual. All Souls’ Day was also incorporated into the same period. This is where the name Halloween comes from. An alternative name for All Saints’ Day is All Hallows’ Day. This made the previous day All Hallow’s Eve. Over time this was shortened to the Halloween we know and (some of us) love today.

As you may have guessed, usurping Samhain and making it Christian didn’t do much to change the Celtic aspects of it. In fact, the church kept the aspects such as bonfires and dressing as demons, giving them Christian connotations. It is believed that trick-or-treating had its origins in early All Souls’ Day celebrations. Children would go door to door and would receive a ‘soul cake’ in return for praying for the occupant’s dead relatives.

After the Reformation, Halloween lost most of its religious meaning. The customs of Halloween were brought to America mostly by Irish immigrants after the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. At first it was seen as a community celebration. However, in the early decades of the 20^th Century there were problems with vandalism. People were taking the trick part of trick-or-treating too seriously, and the treats were almost like a bribe to prevent damage.

As you can probably tell, there is way more to the history of Halloween than what I have mentioned here. If you want to know more, you can check out some of the articles I have listed under further reading.

Bonfire celebration, Scotland

 

Don’t Be Disabled

Ah. We have reached the point where I promised I would tell you how Halloween relates to disability. Simply put, if you are not disabled, your Halloween costume should not include a disability. Before I started to research this, it never occurred to me that disabled Halloween costumes were offensive. There are several examples I came across. This is one I made up on the spot. Say, for instance, as an able-bodied person you decide to dress as a wheelchair user for Halloween. The problem with that is that you can sit into a wheelchair for the night, pretend to be disabled and then stand up and walk off. People who need to use a wheelchair don’t have this option. There are also stories of disabled people being ignored or mistreated around Halloween as people assume they are just in costume. Another issue is haunted houses, particularly those with an asylum theme. To put it mildly, historically, asylums and institutions for the disabled were horrific places. They should not be used for entertainment purposes.

Wow. That was dark. Happy Halloween Everybody!!

To keep up to date with my latest blog posts, you can like my Facebook page, or follow me on Twitter. You can find them by clicking the relevant icons in the sidebar.

Next week, I will be returning to the world of the freak show by looking at P.T. Barnum in more detail.

 

                                                                                                     The Wheelchair Historian  

 

Further Reading

Herbert, Niamh, ‘My Disability is Not a Costume’, Nov 2, 2017 http://www.universitytimes.ie/2017/11/my-disability-is-not-a-costume/ Accessed: 30 October, 2020.

History.com Editors, ‘Halloween 2020’, Last Updated: October 6, 2020, Original Published: November 18, 2009 https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween Accessed: 12 October, 2020.

History.com Editors, ‘Samhain’ Last Updated: October 31, 2019, Original Published Date: April 6, 2018 https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/samhain Accessed: 14 October, 2020.

Leary, Alaina, ‘Disability Isn’t a Halloween Costume’ Wednesday, October 17, 2018 https://rootedinrights.org/disability-isnt-a-halloween-costume/ Accessed: 30 October, 2020.

McNamara, Brittney, ‘Why It's Not OK to Dress Up as Someone With a Disability for Halloween’, October 15, 2018 https://www.teenvogue.com/story/not-ok-to-dress-up-as-someone-with-a-disability-for-halloween Accessed: 30 October, 2020.

Smith Beitiks, Emily, ‘Disability History Gets Forgotten Each Halloween’, San Francisco State University, Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability https://longmoreinstitute.sfsu.edu/disability-history-gets-forgotten-each-halloween Accessed: 30 October, 2020.

Smith Beitiks, Emily, and Conroy, James W., ‘Haunted Pennhurst attraction the 'final indignity'’, November 12, 2011 https://longmoreinstitute.sfsu.edu/disability-history-gets-forgotten-each-halloween Accessed: 30 October, 2020.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘Halloween’, Last Updated: Aug 31, 2020 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Halloween#:~:text=Halloween%20had%20its%20origins%20in%20the%20festival%20of,calendars%2C%20the%20new%20year%20was%20believed%20to%20begin Accessed: 30, October 2020.

Disability and Freak Shows: A History

 

Welcome to the latest post in my series on disability as entertainment. This week I will be discussing the history of freak shows, with a particular emphasis on the 19^th century version. This of course was the era of P.T. Barnum, who, in recent years has been brought back into the public's mind, through the musical movie The Greatest Showman. You may be disappointed, but not surprised to hear that the reality of the situation was no song and dance. As you can imagine, the topic of freak shows is gargantuan. There are already several books written on the topic, and with a growing interest in disability history, there is bound to be several more. With that in mind, I have decided to divide this topic across several posts. This first one will give an overview of what freak shows were, as well as a brief timeline of their popularity. The subsequent posts will focus on particular people and performers involved in the industry.

As with pretty much every topic I cover, this post includes a term which is no longer deemed acceptable when discussing disability. This week that word is freak. If you would like to know why I use derogatory terms, you can read my post ‘The History of Disability Terminology’.

Freak Show: Origins

Okay. I have yet to explain what a freak show actually was. Basically, a group of people who had an unusual appearance, or who could perform unusual acts were put on display and the public would pay a fee to see them. I am well aware that freak shows still take place today, but I am using the past tense, as this is a history blog after all. The freak show was a culmination of several aspects of disability history, that I have already discussed, or will be discussing on this blog. For instance, ‘monstrous’ births have been documented as far back as Stone Age cave paintings. In Ancient Egypt, there were dwarf gods (e.g. Bes), as well as dwarf jesters. Throughout history, there has been a fascination with abnormal bodies. I suppose the 19^th century freak shows could be seen as the peak of this interest.

What became the freak show, had its origins in 16^th and 17^th century Europe. Before this time, the physically deformed were feared as they were seen as bad omens. However, this belief faded, and the public wished to learn more about these people. ‘Monster shows’ took place in taverns, coffeehouses, marketplaces and fairs throughout Europe. Instead of freaks, the performers were known as ‘human curiosities’. These shows made their way to the USA in the first half of the 18^th century. It was here that freak shows took off.

The Peak of the Freak

The freak show was at its most popular during the 19^th century in America. This was in large part thanks to the work of P.T. Barnum. He was excellent at promoting his shows and making people believe in his tales, no matter how farfetched they were. For instance, his very first attraction was Joice Heth, an elderly African American woman in 1835. Barnum displayed her as being the 161-year-old nurse of George Washington. People were completely convinced by this story, that even when she died and doctors revealed her to be only 80 years old, people still believed in Barnum. He went from strength to strength, accumulating a retinue of curiosities and toured America.

The most famous of these performers was General Tom Thumb, whose real name was Charles Stratton. Barnum encountered Stratton when he was just 4 years old. Given Stratton’s short stature, Barnum was able to pass him off as 11 years old. I feel Stratton is an important example when discussing the history of freak shows. I assume that bringing a small child around the world and making them perform for the public’s amusement is against the law today. The way the freak show performers had to display themselves must have been degrading, right? However, this was not necessarily the case. Stratton was a gifted performer, who could do impersonations, as well as other acts. He was as famous for his abilities, as his disabilities. The freak show performers were also incredibly well paid, earning the equivalent of modern-day sports stars. Stratton died incredibly wealthy, leaving a widow behind and he was not the only one to do so. Look, I’m not saying the freak shows were a good thing, I’m just pointing out that freak show performers did not necessarily live bad lives.

 

Charles Stratton Aged 10

 

The Decline

While freak shows and their performers were popular in the 19^th century, this popularity rapidly declined during the 20^th century. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, there was the progression of scientific knowledge. Where once a creative showman could whip up an elaborate tale to explain the bizarre ‘monster’ you saw before you, doctors could now identify many of the illnesses or defects which caused the deformity. This removed the wonder for most spectators. The First World War had a massive role to play, which makes sense when you think about it. You would no longer find deformities entertaining after so many soldiers had been disfigured by the conflict. The freak show, as popularised by P.T. Barnum, virtually ceased to exist by the 1940s. This was also caused by a growth in other forms of entertainment, such as radio and cinema. Furthermore, as you might have guessed, when the disability rights movement emerged in the latter half of the century, they were not best pleased with disabled people being put on display for profit. Finally, with increased supports for disabled people, such as the welfare state in Britain, there was no longer a monetary need to join a freak show.

As I mentioned earlier, freak shows still exist today. However, there is a big difference between them and their 19^th century counterpart. The majority of the performers today are self-made freaks, meaning that they have purposefully changed their appearance of their own free will. The freak show performers of the 19^th century had far fewer options.

To keep up to date with my latest blog posts, you can like my Facebook page, or follow me on Twitter. You can find them by clicking the relevant icons in the sidebar.

Next week I will be doing a special blog post to mark Halloween. In the meantime, I’m off to watch The Greatest Showman for the 100^th time.

 

                                                                                                         The Wheelchair Historian  

 

Further Reading

Bogdan, Robert, Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit (Chicago, 1990).

Chemers, Michael M., Tesch, Noah, ‘Freak show’, Nov 05, 2014 https://www.britannica.com/art/freak-show Accessed: 23 October 2020.

Cleall, Esme, ‘Missing Links: The Victorian Freak Show’ Published in History Today Volume 69 Issue 2 February 2019 https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/missing-links-victorian-freak-show Accessed: 23 October 2020.

Crockett, Zachary, ‘The Rise and Fall of Circus Freakshows’ https://priceonomics.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-circus-freakshows/ Accessed: 23 October 2020.

National Fairground and Circus Archive, ‘History of Freak Shows’, https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/nfca/researchandarticles/freakshows Accessed: 23 October 2020.

PŮTOVÁ, BARBORA. “FREAK SHOWS. OTHERNESS OF THE HUMAN BODY AS A FORM OF PUBLIC PRESENTATION.” Anthropologie (1962-), vol. 56, no. 2, 2018, pp. 91–102. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26476304. Accessed 23 Oct. 2020.

Woolf, John, ‘The greatest show on earth? The myths of the Victorian freak show’, https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/greatest-show-earth-freak-shows-pt-barnum-tom-thumb/ Accessed: 23 October 2020.