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Halloween Comes to AmericaAs European immigrants came to America, they brought their varied1 Halloween customs with them. Because of the rigid2 Protestant belief systems that characterized early New England, celebration of Halloween in colonial times was extremely limited there.
It was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies. As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic3 groups, as well as the American Indians, meshed4, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included "play parties," public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other's fortunes, dance, and sing. Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of the nineteenth century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated5 everywhere in the country.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing Ireland's potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick-or-treat" tradition. Young women believed that, on Halloween, they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn6, apple parings, or mirrors.
In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers, than about ghosts, pranks7, and witchcraft8.
At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season, and festive9 costumes. Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything "frightening" or "grotesque10" out of Halloween celebrations. Because of their efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious11 and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century.
By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular12, but community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide parties as the featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, vandalism began to plague Halloween celebrations in many communities during this time. By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully limited vandalism and Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at the young. Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties baby boom, parties moved from town civic13 centers into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily accommodated. Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively14 inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats. A new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually15 on Halloween, making it the country's second largest commercial holiday.
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1 varied | |
adj.多样的,多变化的 | |
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2 rigid | |
adj.严格的,死板的;刚硬的,僵硬的 | |
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3 ethnic | |
adj.人种的,种族的,异教徒的 | |
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4 meshed | |
有孔的,有孔眼的,啮合的 | |
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5 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
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6 yarn | |
n.纱,纱线,纺线;奇闻漫谈,旅行轶事 | |
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7 pranks | |
n.玩笑,恶作剧( prank的名词复数 ) | |
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8 witchcraft | |
n.魔法,巫术 | |
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9 festive | |
adj.欢宴的,节日的 | |
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10 grotesque | |
adj.怪诞的,丑陋的;n.怪诞的图案,怪人(物) | |
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11 superstitious | |
adj.迷信的 | |
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12 secular | |
n.牧师,凡人;adj.世俗的,现世的,不朽的 | |
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13 civic | |
adj.城市的,都市的,市民的,公民的 | |
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14 relatively | |
adv.比较...地,相对地 | |
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15 annually | |
adv.一年一次,每年 | |
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