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