Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon

Contents

Contents Foreword: Not by Bread Alone, by William Cronon vii Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 3 1 Corn, Beans, and Just Another Squash 9 10,000 bce to 1600 2 “The Times Wherein Old Pompion Was a Saint” 32 From Pumpkin Beer to Pumpkin Pie, 1600 to 1799 3 Thoreau Sits on a Pumpkin 57 The Making of a Rural New En­ gland Icon, 1800 to 1860 4 “Wonderfully Grand and Colossal” 85 The Pumpkin and the Nation, 1861 to 1899 5 Jack-o’-Lantern Smiles 112 Americans Celebrate the Fall Harvest with Pumpkins, 1900 to 1945 6 Atlantic Giants to Jack-Be-Littles 139 The Changing Nature of Pumpkins, 1946 to the Present 7 Pulling Up a Pig Sty to Put in a Pumpkin Patch 165 The Changing Nature of American Rural Economies, 1946 to the Present Notes 199 Bibliography 269 Index 309 ...