soap night n Also window-soaping night scattered Nth, N Midl Cf mischief night n
A night near, usu before, Halloween, when children soap windows and sometimes play other pranks.
1902 Logansport Jrl. (IN) 29 Oct [2]/2 (newspaperarchive.com), Already the fancy of Logansport’s mischief-loving young folks is aglow with visions of the things that will happen on soap night, corn night, cabbage night and last of all upon the night of ghosts and hobgobblins [sic]. 1918 Warren Eve. Times (PA) 30 Oct 8/5, The small boys in the residental [sic] districts of the city have already opened their campaign that leads up to the “big night” by celebrating gate-night, corn-night, porch-night, window-night, soap-night and all of the other nights. 1925 Burlington Hawk-Eye (IA) 25 Oct [27]/1 (newspaperarchive.com), I heard my youngest brother say the other day that there was a new night. Two nights before Hallowe’en is called soap night. That is when they beg their mothers for scraps of soap and make pumpkin faces on windows. 1925 Helena Independent (MT) 31 Oct 6/3, Do you remember back in the good ol’ days when we had clothes line night, door bell night, window soaping night and all kinds of “nights” that preceeded [sic] the real fun? 1969 Sun (Lowell MA) 1 Apr 13/5, The only other holidays devoted to humor are a week-long series of prank days just before Halloween—chalk night, soap night, paint night. 2009 in 2017 DARE File—Internet cwNJ (as of c1955), Halloween was a big deal for us kids. Not the day itself, but the nights leading up to it: Soap Night, Chalk Night, Clothesline Night, and then Mischief Night. 2012 Ibid sePA, In the Germantown section of Phila, the night before Mischief Night was called soap night; & the night before that was called chalk night (on Mischief Night you could only toilet paper houses & other mischief, but no soaping or chalking—that was reserved for their special nights).