Mischief Night & Halloween Parties

The morning after Mischief Night (Halloween itself) is a time to assess the pranks, in this case a yard studded with “For Sale” signs in Philadelphia in 1970. COURTESY THE SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER. TEMPLE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES. PHILADELPHIA, PA  Credit: Atlas Obscura: Why Is Mischief Night Different From All Other Nights?

In fact, it was the ruthless pranks carried out by teenagers against stingy people who would not give alms (say it: AHMZ; gifts of food or money to help the poor) on Halloween that changed over time. It went from Celtic guising (say it: GUY-zing; dressing up in costume to hide from spirits), to Roman Catholic souling (say it: SOUL-ing; going door to door asking for food or prayers), and finally to American trick-or-treating. This led to the idea of the Halloween Party. The most popular time for Halloween parties in American history was from the Victorian Era through the mid-20th century (about 1820–1970s).

Isn't it strange that the religious act of collecting alms to help the poor, with a prank threat to stingy people, slowly turned into kids going door to door just asking for candy for themselves? Over time, this even became a stronger threat of pranks and property damage (breaking or ruining things) if candy was not given.

That is why Hallowfolk® exists. We need a do-over because Halloween’s commercialization (say it: kom-UR-shuh-li-ZAY-shun; turning something into a money-making business) has taken away its soul and meaning. 

With your help as fellow Hallowfolk®, you can help us bring back that meaning by coming to join us and becoming Hallowfolk®. 

Together, we can put the soul back in Halloween.

Adults then tried to keep teenagers out of trouble by giving them something fun and creative to do on Hallows' Eve (October 31). These adults looked into their own family and cultural history and found old Halloween customs from Celtic, Roman, and Roman Catholic roots. They created party games and activities to honor these old ways. These games entertained teenagers and stopped them from playing pranks, which started as harmless jokes but grew into vandalism (say it: VAN-duh-lizm; breaking or damaging property) and even arson (say it: AR-sun; setting fires on purpose).

Even better, adults got older teens and siblings — the ones most likely to cause mischief — to help plan and run the fun and spooky experiences for younger kids and neighborhood children. This kept them busy and stopped trouble on Mischief Night (a new name for Halloween that evolved as the night when kids played pranks and tricks). What better way to stop mischief than by using teens’ imagination and energy to create fun events that celebrated their ancestors’ traditions?

That is why the fortune-telling games and activities at Halloween parties in the British Isles and America during this time were not seen as scary or evil. They honored the silly, fun superstitions of ancestors. Few people took them seriously. Even the fortune-telling games were not dark or Satanic (say it: sah-TAN-ik; connected to the devil), but just silly and fun. Because of this, Catholic and Protestant Christian families all over the British Isles and America hosted Halloween harvest festivals and parties to stop mischief on Mischief Night. But it wasn't long before continued mischief, Hollywood, evangelical Christianity, the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, forgetting, and misunderstanding conspired to imbue Halloween with a darker and more sinister tone.   

Like teenagers trying to outdo each senior class’s big prank, these mischief-makers kept making Halloween trouble worse. By the 1960s, this led to a new night called Devil’s Night (say it DEV-uls Night), celebrated on October 30th, the night before Halloween. As if one night of mischief wasn’t enough!

Devil’s Night started in Philadelphia where there were many Scottish and Irish emigrant families, and then spread to many cities in the Midwest. Detroit, Michigan, eventually became the center of Devil’s Night. There, the pranks turned into serious arson (say it AR-sun; setting fires to destroy property or hurt people on purpose), vandalism (say it VAN-duh-lizm; breaking or damaging property), property destruction (ruining buildings and things), and looting (say it: LOOT-ing; stealing from stores or homes) from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Detroit’s Devil’s Night became so well known that it was shown in the late Brandon Lee’s hit movie The Crow. In response, Detroit started Angel’s Night on October 30, where the community came together to stop the trouble. This also led to a short return of Halloween parties and festivals in the 1990s. These parties brought back the fun Victorian customs and old traditions.

Mischief Night then itself created the exigency for the bundling of fortune-telling, games, and demonstration of the more ancient customs at parties designed by the adults in order to keep youth out of trouble instead of engaging in delinquent rites of passage.  Thus, the apple superimposed on the moon in our original logo also alludes to souling, trick-or-treating, Mischief Night, and the Halloween Party and all the lost and forgotten traditions that resulted.  

Help us put the soul back in All Souls Day and Halloweven by restoring the Christian charity that embodied this season by becoming Hallowfolk®.  

It is also for these reasons that during the Victorian Era, both Catholic and Protestant Christian reformers (say it: ree-FORM-ers; people who wanted to change and improve things) called Mischief Night “the devil’s holiday.” Because of this, it started to fall out of favor by the early 20th century.  

This may explain why so many of our Hallows' Eve (another name for Halloween night) traditions were lost over time and are now forgotten. We have forgotten our history, and for many of us, we never learned it in the first place...

The Casper (WY) Daily Tribune's Tuesday November 1, 1921 newspaper in its community pages demonstrates the competitive community nature of Halloween parties.  With a 1920 population of 11,447 people in Casper, WY, according to the US Census, there were almost a dozen reports on different Halloween parties around town.  It's interesting that so many individuals took to writing up reports from their parties the night prior and sending them to The Casper Daily Tribune (which would become the Casper Star Tribune) by print deadline to appear in the next day's paper. It shows that by the 1920s, the Halloween Party had reached its heyday where it would remain through the 1970s and 1980s before the commercialization of Halloween stripped Halloween of its meaning.   We still do the things, but we don't remember why we do them.