Americans Celebrate the Fall Harvest with Pumpkins
1900 to 1945
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In 1920, for the first time in history, farmers made up less than half the American population. Many felt the foundation of American society and its core values, rooted in a rural way of life, were under serious threat. Some farm families who were unable to compete with large-scale producers took advantage of this new incarnation of rural nostalgia by setting up roadside stands and selling a picturesque ideal in which the pumpkin had long been a prime attraction. Farmers, of course, sold many fruits and vegetables from their stands, but the pumpkin is a particularly powerful crop to follow because demand for it was spurred by its bucolic meanings and symbolic uses in harvest displays and holiday treats, rather than by the needs of sustenance, as was the case with strawberries and apples.
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Changing Name and Face of Pumpkins
The field pumpkin’s rusticity, its headlike shape and living flesh, its time of harvest, and its historic connection to the world of wild spirits all captured the Halloween's essence and propelled it into ghoulish persona of the Jack-‘O-Lantern.
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Farmers Sell Pumpkins at Roadside Stands
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Heading out to the Countryside to Buy Pumpkins
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Playing with Mischievous Pumpkins
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Eating
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