[PW] College jack-o-lantern tradition

[Denise Montgomery]

I did a search in the Atlanta Constitution, Washington Post, and the New
York Times, and teh only other mention of a lantern parade I found at a
college was a 1935 story from the Washington Post which mentioned the
lantern parade as part of the festivities at Longwood College in Farmville,
VA.

So...perhaps it could be something native to women's colleges from Virginia?
Is there anyone from Mary Baldwin or Mary Washington or Hollins on this
list? Maybe they also had lantern parades?

                                            Denise Montgomery


On 5/18/07, Meredith Dixon <dixonm at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> 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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>
>
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