Move over #HotGirlSummer, #SadGirlFall is here.
It’s the time of year to be cozy and sad. Now you can do it historically.
We are preparing for the holidays, full of awkward family dinners and the standard end-of-year existential crisis. But we also get plaid! And apple picking! And, of course, PSL! All of which have a rich history in America. Here is the story behind your favorite fall staples.
Pumpkin Spice
Look, Pumpkin Spice has been around for a long, looooong time. It is just that the spice combo and the squash only met more recently.
The mixture of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and cloves that we all love is made up of spices that have been used in Indonesia for over 3,000 years. By the 1300s these spices made their way to Europe — and in fact, nutmeg was at one time worth more than gold with one pound trading for SEVEN oxen.
When colonists left behind Europe, and many of the foods they were familiar with, they did bring spices. And what they found in the Americas were crops they had never seen. Corn. Cranberries. And pumpkins, lots of pumpkins, which Native Americans had been cultivating as a food source for around 3,500 years. Turns out that this squash would be a pretty important staple in colonists’ diets.
Still, there have always been pumpkin haters. In 1647, Puritan Nathaniel Ward published a pamphlet bemoaning the “pumpkin-blasted brains” of his fellow settlers. Haters aside, the versatile squash was used for eats savory to sweet, with the first official recipe for “pompkin” pie appearing in America’s oldest cookbook — American Cookery, by Amelia Simmons, 1796.
Between 1760 and 1840, the U.S. experienced rapid changes in the economy due to industrialization. This included imports increasing, and food crops diversifying. The pumpkin was losing popularity. But nostalgia would save the humble squash. Poets and authors began writing about “the good old days” — you know, the ones when Pilgrims showed up unprepared and nearly starved? As the romanticized (and white-washed) version of the Pilgrim’s survival, captured by the story of Thanksgiving, became a key part of the American mythos. The pumpkin was transformed into a symbol of American perseverance and U.S. success.
Despite the cult status pumpkin had achieved, the idea of “pumpkin spice” was still 100 years away. It was during the 1930s, when the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression ganged up on American cooks, that mass-produced convenience foods became essential. Those canned, powdered foods, and dried goods that could be stored for long periods of time shaped American cuisine. This included spice mixes, like Mccormicks' “pumpkin spice mix” introduced in 1934.
Starbucks was just fulfilling its destiny when it introduced Pumpkin Spice Lattes in 2003 —it had to happen.
Apple Picking
Agritourism isn’t new — it’s been a thing as long as there have been cities. But in the 1920s, technology and social change made a trip to the farm more desirable, and doable. For the first time, the majority of the U.S. lived in cities, and Ford Model Ts became more affordable. Nostalgia for simple times + a longing for the open road meant that agritourism got a big boost.
Then came the Great Depression of the 1930s. It was devastating for farmers across the nation. While most of us think of the Dust Bowl in the western prairies, other areas were suffering from an entirely different problem — overproduction. Because the market was so bad, it was often cheaper to let food rot in the fields than to harvest and sell it. But that was hard to stomach, and many farmers turned to pick-your-own business models.
In the 1970s, Booker T. Whatley proposed pick-your-own farms as a model to deliver financial independence for Black farm owners. Whatley knew that attracting urban crowds was essential — he advocated farms within 40 miles of major cities, reachable by hard-surfaced roads. It was his work that led to the Community Supported Agriculture programs we have today.
Plaid
Plaid, the American cousin of the Scottish tartan. The first plaid to make it big in the U.S. was the Buffalo Plaid. Its origins are contested, but the official Scottish Tartans authority tends to accept that it was introduced to North America by a descendant of Rob Roy MacGregor — Jock McCluskey. McCluskey brought the MacGregor tartan to the U.S. for trading in the 19th century, and “buffalo plaid” was born.
In 1850, Woolrich introduced us to the buffalo plaid wool shirt. And it was a big hit. Pendleton Mills stepped up in 1925, creating colorful plaid shirts for men. In 1949, women were finally invited to the party with the “49er” shirt.
But plaid was more than just popular. It was a pattern with a LOT to say. In the UK, the Royal Stewart Tartan has been associated with high society since the Victorian era. Plaid kept this high society association here in the U.S., where prep school uniforms adopted the pattern. But plaid was also being claimed by counterculture youth — surfing both that monster wave AND the mosh pit. A few examples:
- Before neoprene wetsuits, surfers would slather on a layer of petroleum jelly and throw on a wool plaid shirt to keep warm in the water. The Beach Boys started out as the Pendletons, in honor of their Pendleton plaid shirts.
- In the 1970s, punk rock began wearing Royal Stewart Tartan — in torn-up strips or other unconventional ways — as an “up yours” to the upper class in the UK. The style jumped the pond pretty fast, and would become a mainstay in both grunge rock and hip hop in the 1990s.
Anyway, we hope you enjoy your #SadGirlFall. We know we will. And the next time someone side-eyes your basic PSL, you remember that you are holding history in your hands.
