If you ever watched the Halloween episode of Drunk History, you probably know who Elizabeth Krebs was. For those who don’t, she is often called “the mother of Halloween,” as she is credited with starting the first community Halloween celebration in the United States (I personally am skeptical of this claim, but I can’t find any evidence saying otherwise, so there you go). However, as we all know, most Halloween traditions are far older than Mrs. Krebs’s parties, stemming from the ancient Celtic festival Samhain.
By the early 1900s, when Mrs. Krebs came up with her “Halloween frolics,” Halloween had become associated mostly with vandalism, pranks, and all-around bullshittery. Mrs. Krebs was the proud founder of the Hiawatha Garden Club in Hiawatha, Kansas, which made her garden a prime target for bored teenagers with nothing better to do. Every year they trashed her beloved garden, and by 1912, Mrs. Krebs was sick of it. At that time, the accepted way to deal with obnoxious children and troublesome teens was to wear them out to the point they were too tired to get up to their usual shenanigans. Although it’s practically impossible to say for sure, it’s possible that Mrs. Krebs took inspiration from traditional Samhain celebrations for her Halloween parties. Here are a few of the similarities:
Costumes
Costume contests are common features in many community Halloween celebrations, and Mrs. Krebs’s Halloween parties were no different. However, wearing costumes for Halloween wasn’t a new idea when Mrs. Krebs started her parties. To the ancient Celts, Samhain was more than just a harvest festival – it was a time when the veil between life and death was thinner than usual, allowing spirits to roam the earth freely. Not all of those spirits were friendly, either. Ancient Celts celebrating Samhain would wear masks and heavy makeup to trick any dark fairies or spirits hanging around nearby into leaving them be.
Halloween Parades
Halloween parades are another common feature of community Halloween celebrations, and they are becoming increasingly popular (Galveston is having one this year!). Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Krebs also featured parades in her parties. So did traditional Samhain celebrations. Although Samhain parades probably weren’t formal, there was a processional element to the whole thing. Every year, the ancient Celts would build a bonfire (also called a needfire) in the center of town. When it came time to celebrate, the people would leave their homes and travel through the community, collecting firewood and food for the feast. Which brings me to the third similarity:
Trick or Treating
Being the last harvest festival of the year, Samhain celebrations have always been associated with food. Everyone loves food, so it’s no wonder that the association was passed down to Halloween. The association with sweets, specifically, comes in part from the Holy Roman Empire’s campaign to convert all of Europe to Christianity. By the time the Romans made it to the British Isles, people weren’t willing to give up their Samhain celebration. Instead of killing them all, the pope at the time decided to move All Saints’ Day, which had been established previously in a similar campaign to convert pagan Romans who didn’t want to give up their Lemuria celebrations, from May to November 1st. The day after, November 2nd, eventually became All Souls’ Day, where it’s generally thought trick-or-treating originated. Back then, they called it “souling.” The children would go door-to-door asking for sweets in exchange for prayers for the dead.
There’s no telling where Elizabeth Krebs got her ideas for her Halloween frolics. There are so many parallels between the parties she organized and the way people celebrated Samhain in the past, it’s hard not to wonder if she really did her research when planning them, and how much information was available to her. Either way, it’s fascinating to see the similarities and what has been passed down over the centuries and millennia!
Playing With Demons 