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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHalloween witches: ladies not for burning
http://blog.oup.com/2013/10/origin-halloween-witches-american-history/It is no surprise, perhaps, that part of the answer lies with the rise of modern marketing and branding. How does one dress up as a witch for Halloween, as many thousands will be doing this 31 October? Basically you stick a black pointy hat on your head. Depictions of witches with pointy hats began to appear in childrens books in eighteenth-century England, probably inspired by earlier black steeple hats worn in stereotypic depictions of seventeenth-century Puritans. By the end of the nineteenth century the pointy-hatted witch had become a widespread image in print. It was at this moment that Salem, Massachusetts, comes into the picture. It was there that a jeweller named Daniel Low began to produce souvenir spoons depicting a witch with a pointy hat and broom. Their success kick-started the transformation of Salem into the marketing creation Witch City, and the pointy-hatted witch was replicated on numerous Witch City products.
At the same time as this witch image was proliferating in marketing and the mass media, the nature of American Halloween custom was changing. With its roots in Irish mischief night, American youths had traditionally marked Halloween by performing such malicious acts as greasing railway tracks, smashing windows, and overturning outdoor toilets. But from the 1950s onwards the sanitised American trick-or-treat and costume bonanza we know today was beginning to spread. The remarketing of Witch City into Halloween City by local entrepreneurs from the 1980s onwards was a significant element in this transformation. Its Americas biggest Halloween party and youre invited! one promotional site proclaims today. The now inseparable link between witchcraft and Halloween was forged.
There is another link in the story though. One of the most active players in creating Halloween City was a Wiccan named Laurie Cabot. In 1971 she set up a Witch Shop in Salem selling witchcraft paraphernalia. The Wiccan religion, founded by the retired British civil servant Gerald Gardner in the 1950s, adopted the ancient seasonal calendar of the pagan Irish Celts, where 31 October was celebrated as Samhain, one of four key calendar celebrations. This festival marked the beginning of winter, a time of feasting but also when the spirits were most likely to intrude on the world of humans. So for modern pagan witches like Cabot the link between witchcraft (as a re-invented modern religion) and Halloween was perfectly obvious. But how did knowledge of this association reach the wider American public?
adirondacker
(2,921 posts)From Wikipedia...
"Timely topics
Some episodes take a backdoor approach to such topics as racism, as seen in the first season episode, "The Witches Are Out", in which Samantha objects to Darrin's demeaning ad portrayal of witches as ugly and deformed. Such stereotypical imagery often causes Endora and other witches to flee the country until November. "Sisters at Heart" (season 7), whose story was submitted by a tenth-grade English class involves Tabitha altering the skin tone of herself and a black friend with coordinating polka-dots so people would treat them equally.[11] In the 1969 episode, "Tabitha's Weekend", when offered homemade cookies by Darrin's mother, Endora asks, "They're not by chance from an Alice B. Toklas recipe?" Phyllis replies, "They're my recipe", to which Endora retorts, "Then I'll pass." Toklas's cookbook was infamous for having a dessert recipe which included hashish.[12]"
It was my Mom's favorite show and we'd watch it together when I was a child
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Which one had the two Darrens played by the two Dicks?
adirondacker
(2,921 posts)It's been a while
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Thanks, folks, I'll be here all week...