Overview
- Industry surveys report rising participation since 2005, with researchers estimating about $13 billion in total U.S. Halloween outlays this year.
- Merchants advanced displays and promotions to manage seasonal inventory and price cycles as the holiday’s commercial footprint expanded.
- The festival’s origins lie in the Celtic Samhain, when guising and other liminal‑season rites prefigured modern trick-or-treating.
- Post‑World War II suburbanization and the spread of individually wrapped candy helped shift Halloween in America from mischief toward a child‑focused, family celebration.
- Cultural and health coverage revisits how Washington Irving helped cement the pumpkin as a Halloween icon and how folk ‘witch’ herbs later yielded medicines such as atropine and aspirin.