The Surprising History Behind Popular Halloween Costumes

What would a witch costume be without the pointy hat? Why did pirates wear so many impractical accessories while at sea? And why is a bed sheet enough to transform into a ghost?

The costumes we wear on Halloween all have a story to tell—a story that is often far removed from the historical reality they are supposed to represent. Here's a look at the history of some famous Halloween costumes that you may not know.

Witch

It is often said that the standard witch costume comes from medieval women called alewives – who brewed and sold beer. The story goes that the alewives needed tall hats to help them stand out from the crowd.

That is almost certainly fiction.

In her book Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600, Judith M. Bennett writes that herring farmers were often portrayed in a negative light. One poem (circa 1517) describes a fictional herring farmer doing all sorts of evil things, including dealing with a witch. And while the poem doesn't explicitly identify the herring farmer as a witch, the implication may be there.

But by 1517, the herring farmer had all but disappeared (at least in England). This was problematic for two reasons: First, in England, the peak witch trial period was around 1563–1712; it was largely across continental Europe at the same time. Second, during the peak witch trial period, artistic depictions of witches tended to show them naked or looking like everyone else in the community. Classic witch costumes did not appear until the 18th century, when herring farmers largely disappeared. While it is possible that individual herring farmers were accused of witchcraft, it is unlikely that they formed the prototype for witches in general.

There is no clear answer as to the origin of this costume. One popular explanation is that it originated from the witch's hat that Jews were forced to wear in some countries. It has also been suggested that the hat symbolizes a Quaker hat, a capotain (most famously the "pilgrim's cap"), or even an allusion to the goddess Diana.

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But it is likely that there is no deeper meaning to this costume and that it is reminiscent of earlier depictions of witches in everyday dress. There are many 17th century paintings of women in black robes and top hats that do not suggest witchcraft. This has led some authors to suggest that in the 17th and 18th centuries, the modern witch costume was a perfectly acceptable one for everyone to wear. As the costume began to fall out of fashion, the image became a mockery of older, rural women and, hence, witches.

Vampire

Vampires are elegant, handsome, and look great in formal attire. Unless that vampire is the original Dracula. In Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula is described as "a tall old man, clean-shaven except for a long white moustache, and dressed in black from head to foot, without a speck of colour on his person."

According to Smithsonian Magazine, the tuxedo element appeared in the 1924 stage play. Due to the demands of the times, Dracula's charm had to be clearly shown—hence, a handsome guy dressed in an elegant outfit appeared.

This play also introduced us to the now iconic large collar on the cloak. According to writer David J. Skal, 'Originally, the collar had a distinct theatrical function: to cover the actor's head when he stood with his back to the house, thus allowing him to slip out of the cloak and down a panel or trapdoor, literally disappearing before the audience's eyes. Although the trick collar had no further purpose in film adaptations, it has become a defining feature of vampire costumes of all time.'

Batman

Batman co-creator Bob Kane has listed many influences on the character over the years. Zorro is an obvious example, but Kane has also said that one of his most important influences was The Bat Whispers, a 1930 film about a thief who dresses up as a giant bat to rob his victims. A final influence was Leonardo da Vinci's drawing called "Ornithopter," which Kane felt would make the wearer look like a giant bat.

Aside from a vaguely bat-inspired frame, Kane's creation has little in common with the modern superhero. Kane is more striking, wearing a Robin-like mask and a red suit with more bat-like ornithopter-style wings. The modern Batman design is easily attributed to the underappreciated Bill Finger. According to Kane,

'One day I called Bill and said, 'I have a new character called Bat-Man and I have a sketch ready that I want you to see.' At that time, I just had a little domino mask, like the one Robin later wore, over Batman's face. Bill said, 'Why not make him look more like a bat and put a hood on him, take out the eyeballs and just slit the eyes to make him look more mysterious?' At this time, Bat-Man wore a red hybrid suit; the wings, torso and mask were all black. I thought red and black would be a great combination. Bill said the costume was too bright: 'Make it dark grey to make it more ominous.' The cape looked like two stiff bat wings attached to his arms. As Bill and I talked, we realized that these wings would get cumbersome when Bat-Man was in action, so we changed them to a cape, with a fringe to look like bat wings when he's fighting or swinging down a rope. Also, he doesn't wear any gloves, and we added them so he wouldn't leave fingerprints.

Pirates

The image of pirates or piracy has changed dramatically over time. Why? According to Anne M. Loechle's Ye Intruders Beware: Fantastical Pirates in the Golden Age of Illustration, Spain was a foreign country to 19th-century Americans, and even to many Europeans. The country was a popular destination for artists and travel writers, who produced nearly indistinguishable accounts of pirates, with scarves, baggy pants, and handkerchiefs wrapped around their heads. Pyle, a famous painter, was naturally drawn to the story of Spain's exoticism when he came up with designs for his pirate costumes.

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But there may have been more to it than that. Pyle worked at a time when tensions between Spain and the United States were rising, and the pirate could be contrasted in many ways with the stereotypical white Navy man of the era, with Loechle writing that "The uncharted maritime terrain [the pirate] shared with the American sailor highlighted their further differences: the Navy sailor was white; the pirate was racially ambiguous. With his headdress, wide belt, short trousers, and dark complexion, he resembled nothing so much as an Anglo-Saxon cowboy or sailor. Instead, American illustrators chose to imitate contemporary Spanish gypsies and Spanish genre subjects. The pirate's popularity was due, perhaps, to the indeterminate nature of his ethnic and racial identity."

Pyle was more than just an illustrator. He also taught other artists, and many of his students went on to create famous pirate images based on his example, forever making the 19th century Spanish the default American pirate image.

Ghost

The origins of the classic burial shroud are traditionally traced back to Renaissance burial rituals. People were buried in shrouds or swaddling clothes, often in lieu of coffins.

This cloth was then brought to the stage. In the early 16th century, apart from a little powder to whiten the face, there was little to distinguish ghost characters from non-ghost characters on stage. This began to change in the late 16th century. A visual language emerged, with white cloths representing ghosts.

And while modern audiences view the bedsheet ghost as a source of humor and the epitome of effortless Halloween costumes, centuries ago its ancestors were very serious. Deadly serious.

There are many stories of ghost impersonators from the 16th to the 19th centuries, where the outcome was not good for either the impostor or the victim, whether the impostor was beaten to near death or the victim was robbed. One notable example is in 1704, when the thief Arthur Chambers is said to have stayed at a house he intended to rob. The story goes that he then pretended that his brother had died and was allowed to have his coffin brought to the house on his way to bury him.

Chambers then wrapped himself in a shroud, covered his face with powder, and hid in a coffin. According to an 18th-century account, he 'rose from his death-house… and went down stairs into the kitchen with the shroud wrapped about him, and sat down in a chair opposite the maid, so that she was so frightened that she fell down and cried out 'a Soul, a Soul, a Soul.'' Chambers stole 600 pounds of merchandise.

So how did such a mournful face become the butt of jokes? According to Owen Davies in The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts, in the 1920s and 1930s, comedians took note of these hoaxes and incorporated them into their films. This meant that in films like Laurel and Hardy's Habeas Corpus or Buster Keaton's Neighbors, people were somehow covered in a sheet and mistaken for ghosts—and while the characters in the film were terrified, the people in the audience were laughing.

Davies writes, "The clown ghost effectively robbed the white cloth of its power to frighten. Today, millions of people believe that the spirits of the dead still walk the earth, but it is certain that very few people, if confronted with a white cloth on a dark night, would actually shout 'Ghost!' Laurel and Hardy helped put an end to that."

David Pac

Update 30 October 2024