[PW] College jack-o-lantern tradition

[Meredith Dixon]

This is for me, so no great hurry.  I'm an alumna of Randolph-Macon Woman's 
College in Lynchburg, Virginia, which has just gone co-ed and changed its 
name to Randolph College. I'm trying to write a book about our campus 
traditions.

One such tradition is the Lantern Parade, later known as the Pumpkin Parade.  
In the Parade, the Seniors line up in cap and gown to carry lighted 
jack-o-lanterns across campus on Halloween.

Our yearbook first mentions the Lantern Parade in 1908.  But I have just 
learned that, in October 1905, the Ladies' Home Journal published a magazine 
cover by Harrison Fisher which shows a group of classic "Fisher girls", in 
cap and gown, carrying lighted jack-o-lanterns in a long nighttime 
procession.  The cover is uncaptioned, but it seems to be intended to 
accompany an article on "College Girls' Merry Pranks".  Unfortunately, the 
article does not mention R-MWC.

It is tempting to conclude that our Lantern Parade had started by 1905,
but I don't know what Fisher would have been doing in Lynchburg, Virginia, as 
his studio was in New York.  On the other hand, we did have
some students from New York and he could have heard about the parade somehow.  
The drawing is somewhat stylized and he needn't have drawn it from life.

Anyway, what I'd like to ask Project Wombat is, does anyone know whether there 
are any other women's colleges who have or used to have such a tradition?  
And can you think of any better way to find out than calling the reference 
library of each woman's college, or former woman's college,
extant in 1905 and asking them?

I've Googled.  Googling brings up a lot of references to our own tradition 
(one of them a column of mine from my student days, in fact)
and a reference to a school in the Midwest where seniors carve and hide
jack-o-lanterns and freshmen search for them.  Nothing else.

-- 
Meredith Dixon <dixonm at pobox.com>
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