Carved pumpkins became a Halloween staple through a gradual American adaptation of older Irish and British Isles customs. People there carved faces into turnips and other root vegetables, sometimes placing candles inside; Irish immigrants carried the practice and its folklore to North America, where pumpkins were plentiful and easier to carve. Over the nineteenth century, stories, literature and popular imagery helped establish the pumpkin jack-o’-lantern as a Halloween symbol.
Before pumpkins, people carved turnips
The older custom used root vegetables, especially turnips. A surviving example in the National Museum of Ireland’s collection is a carved turnip lantern from Donegal. The museum says it was donated in 1943 by a schoolteacher who identified it as a type made locally around 1900. The object record offers evidence of a regional practice, not a precise date for when the custom began or proof that every community observed it.
Lanterns had a practical use: a candle inside could provide light in the dark. Their frightening faces also belonged to a folkloric world in which such lights or figures were thought to scare away spirits. The museum’s “Ghost turnip” collection record describes the object and its local context.
How Stingy Jack became part of the story
The jack-o’-lantern’s name and imagery are commonly linked to the tale of Stingy Jack. In a popular version, Jack is admitted to neither Heaven nor Hell and wanders with a coal held inside a hollowed-out turnip. The story has multiple versions and should be understood as folklore associated with the lantern—not as documentary proof of how or when people began carving vegetables.
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The Smithsonian’s account of Halloween traditions discusses the legend and its connection to the lantern: “Halloween Owes Its Tricks and Treats to the Ancient Celtic New Year’s Eve”.
Why pumpkins took over in America
Irish immigrants brought customs and stories across the Atlantic. In North America, pumpkins were more plentiful than turnips and potatoes, and their larger size and softer flesh made them easier to hollow and carve. The vegetable changed, while the practice of making an illuminated face—and the folklore attached to it—continued.
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| Form | Material and use | Historical context |
|---|---|---|
| Irish and British Isles root-vegetable lanterns | Turnips and other root vegetables were carved; candles could be placed inside. | The National Museum of Ireland’s Donegal example was donated in 1943 and identified by its donor as a local type made around 1900. This is evidence for that locality, not a universal timeline. |
| American pumpkin jack-o’-lanterns | Pumpkins provided a plentiful, easier-to-carve alternative for making lanterns. | The form developed after the custom reached North America and became increasingly associated with Halloween over time. |
The National Museum of Ireland describes the pumpkin as an American development of the tradition. For a fuller account of how the pumpkin form became established, see National Geographic’s history of American jack-o’-lanterns.
How the pumpkin became a Halloween symbol
The association took shape over decades rather than on one identifiable date. The Library of Congress points to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s references to jack-o’-lanterns and pumpkin imagery in works published in 1835 and 1852. National Geographic reports that an image of a pumpkin jack-o’-lantern likely appeared in Harper’s Weekly in 1867. These are signs that the image was circulating in American culture, not proof of a single inventor or a nationwide adoption date.
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By 1915, the connection was explicit in the press. The Library of Congress cites a New York Tribune headline: “In Pumpkin Land the Jack-‘o-Lantern Is Still the Symbol of Hallowe’en.” Taken together, the literary and newspaper references document a growing cultural association. The Library of Congress traces Halloween customs and these historical markers in “The Origins of Halloween Traditions”.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the evidence can—and cannot—tell us
The surviving object, folklore and later cultural references answer different questions. The Donegal turnip is a physical example connected to one locality; Stingy Jack is a tale that helps explain the lantern’s name and symbolism; nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century references show the pumpkin image becoming familiar in the United States. None identifies a single person who invented pumpkin carving or an exact year when pumpkins replaced turnips everywhere.
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