Trick or Treat (1938)

[George Thompson]

I accidentally sent an almost empty version of this message a moment ago.  Sorry about that.  Especially since this version of the message is empty enough. . . .

The story on trick or treating Barry posted recently from the Los Angeles Times of Oct 30, 1938 alludes to the standard trick of rural boys of removing gates from their hinges and carrying them off.  "Although there are few gates available for modern city boys to perch on rooftops. . . ."  Our country cousins, it seems, would also steal outhouses.  There is a very funny editorial cartoon by "Ding" Darling from FDR's first administration (I suppose his first) showing two rougish little boys labelled "Roosevelt" and (I think) "Hopkins" running off with an out-house labelled something or other, while a bewildered looking "John Q. Public" looked out its door.  The practice of "tricking" on Hallowe'en is old enough, and probably the practice of demanding treats, too.  The word has got to be older than so far traced.  In the mid/late 1940s, my mother dressed me up and took me about the neighbors to trick or treat, calling it that.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.