Editing Jack-o'-lantern (section)

===In North America===

The application of the term to carved pumpkins in [[American English]] is first seen in 1837.<ref>{{cite news|title=Jack-o'-lantern|work=Oxford English Dictionary}}</ref>

[[File:Thanksgiving_Greetings,_jack-o-lantern_and_a_turkey_(NBY_18516).jpg|right|thumb|200px|American Thanksgiving Day postcard sent in 1909 with images of a jack-o'-lantern and a turkey]] In the United States and Canada, the carved pumpkin was first associated with the harvest season in general before it became a symbol of Halloween.<ref name=NYTM /> In 1895, an article on [[Thanksgiving (United States)|Thanksgiving]] entertaining recommended giving a lit jack-o'-lantern as a child's prize in Thanksgiving games.<ref name=NYTM>{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9800EEDC1139E033A25757C2A9679D94649ED7CF |title=The Day We Celebrate: Thanksgiving Treated Gastronomically and Socially |work=The New York Times|date= November 24, 1895|page= 27}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9802E7D6173FE433A25752C2A9669D946197D6CF |title=Odd Ornaments for Table|work=The New York Times|date= October 21, 1900|page= 12}}</ref> The poet [[John Greenleaf Whittier]], who was born in Massachusetts in 1807, wrote the poem "The Pumpkin" (1850), which mentions Thanksgiving but not Halloween:<ref>{{cite web|author=Whittier, John Greenleaf|url=http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19022|website=Poets.org|title=The Pumpkin|date=1885|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101128145648/http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19022|archive-date=2010-11-28}}</ref><blockquote>Oh!—fruit loved of boyhood!—the old days recalling,

When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,

Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!</blockquote>

The carved pumpkin lantern's association with Halloween is recorded in the 1 November 1866 edition of the ''Daily News'' ([[Kingston, Ontario]]):
{{blockquote|The old time custom of keeping up Hallowe'en was not forgotten last night by the youngsters of the city. They had their maskings and their merry-makings, and perambulated the streets after dark in a way which was no doubt amusing to themselves. There was a great sacrifice of pumpkins from which to make transparent heads and face, lighted up by the unfailing two inches of tallow candle.<ref>{{cite news|work=Daily News|location=Kingston, Ontario|date= November 1, 1866|title=Carved pumpkin}}</ref>}}

In 1879's ''Funny Nursery Rhymes'', a poem admonishes children to avoid being similar to untrustworthy "Master Jack o' Lantern," described as a "wicked, deceiving boy" similar to a [[will-o'-the-wisp]] who "dances, and jumps, and gambols." He is humorously illustrated as a personification of a lantern.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-DIPAAAAQAAJ&dq=%22jack-o'-lantern%22&pg=RA2-PA19 |title=Funny Nursery Rhymes |date=1879 |publisher=Ward, Lock, and Company |pages=17–20 |language=en}}</ref>

An 1885 article "Halloween Sports and Customs" contrasts the American jack-o'-lantern custom with the British bonfire custom:<ref>{{cite magazine |author=Sage, Agnes Carr|title=Halloween Sports and Customs|magazine=[[Harper's Young People]]|date= October 27, 1885|page=828}}</ref>
{{blockquote|It is an ancient British custom to light great [[bonfires]] (Bone-fire to clear before Winter froze the ground) on Hallowe'en, and carry blazing [[fascine|fagots]] about on long poles; but in place of this, American boys delight in the funny grinning jack-o'-lanterns made of huge yellow pumpkins with a candle inside.}}

Adaptations of [[Washington Irving]]'s short story "[[The Legend of Sleepy Hollow]]" (1820) often show the [[Headless Horseman (Legend of Sleepy Hollow)|Headless Horseman]] with a jack-o'-lantern in place of his severed head. In the original story, a shattered pumpkin is discovered next to Ichabod Crane's abandoned hat on the morning after Crane's supposed encounter with the Horseman, but the story does not reference jack-o'-lanterns or Halloween.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morton |first=Lisa |title=Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween |publisher=Reaktion Books |year=2012 |pages=160}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Skal |first=Richard |title=Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween |publisher=Bloomsbury |year=2002 |pages=35}}</ref>