Homecoming. A century-old American tradition

In which the author apologizes for her silence and promises more frequent blog posts – explains homecoming tradition – walks the dear reader through the history of the corn monument – wonders about American love of parades – discusses Americans’ longing for monarchy – finishes up by mentioning morning drinking and tailgating.

The 2015 Corn Monument, as seen from the Capitol

First and foremost, I want to apologize to the dearest reader for keeping them for so long in the dark without any updates from this fascinating land of corn, pig and everything on a stick. From now on, I will provide you an in-depth glimpse to the people, traditions and living in the Hawkeye state at least twice a month.

This time, I want to start by introducing you the tradition of homecoming. 

According to Wikipedia, homecoming is “an annual tradition of the United States. People, towns, high schools, and colleges come together, usually in late September or early October, to welcome back alumni and former residents. It is built around a central event, such as a banquet and, most often, a sports game.” Apparently, homecoming has its roots in the 19th century, but the first officially recorded date for the homecoming, (which is also used in the Trivial Pursuit), was 1911 in the University of Missouri.  

The Corn Monument

The University of Iowa claims to have a homecoming tradition – a monument made from corn ears – which goes back to 1910s.

 As local Press-Citizen quotes late local historian Irvin Weber, “the Corn Monument and variations have been a Homecoming tradition since 1914, when a class of hydraulics engineering erected the first. It was made with 3,000 ears of yellow, red and white corn — reportedly a 'corny idea.'“ 

1919 Corn Monument.
From the digital archives of the UI

This tradition waned in 1960s, experienced an on-and-off revival through the 1980s into the early 1990s. In different years, it came in different shapes and forms – as you can see from the pictures from the digital archives of the UI.

The forgotten Corn Monument made a come-back last year, and in 2015 its I – shape proudly overlooks the Iowa River again.

Here are some Corn Monuments from the past (all images are from the digital archives of the University of Iowa and are used here for education purposes:

Homecoming corn monument 1961

Homecoming corn monument 1945

Homecoming cornmonument 1947

Homecoming corn monumet 1952

Homecoming corn monument 1949

Homecoming corn monument 1940

The Parade

“Americans love parades. That’s the reason we invented homecoming – so we could have more parades,” – an American grad student explained the real purpose of the homecoming to me.

And yes, Americans do love their parades. On Friday, toddlers, children, tweens, teens, undergrads, recent graduates, long time alumni, their friends, families, distant relatives – basically, all town and visitors, all wearing black and gold, lined up along a few streets, put down their camping chairs and sat down to wait for the parade to go by with a smart phone in one hand and a plastic bag for all the free candies and other goods in the other.

UI Alumni band in the parade

But even 1.5 hours spent looking at different groups of people, defined by their ethnic, educational, professional or leisure affiliation, did not convince me that it was worth my time. (But I did get a toothbrush!)

 There were a few marching bands, some cars with music on, but the biggest part of the participants looked as if they were bored, tired and just wanted to relax with a pint of a cold Bud[1] (like on a normal Friday) instead of walking around the downtown. And it is understandable – walking is not a natural way of getting from point A to point B for most of the Americans.

The parade culminates in coronation of the homecoming King and Queen, which is another tradition, probably illustrating one of the oldest constitutional democracy’s latent longing for a royal model couple.  And it makes me wonder, maybe they should not have had made such a fuss about taxes and should not have had spilled tea in 1770s? They would have a Queen now, beautiful princesses and princes and there would be no need for plastic crowns and new royalty each year…

Saturday partying 

Coming back to our story, the next morning, at 8 AM, black-and-gold crowd gathered around the stadium to booze and grill (what is known as ‘tailgating’[2]) and to wait for the American football game, in which the UI college team played team from Illinois (a state adjacent to Iowa, in the East).  

As I have mentioned before, the sports game is the main part of the homecoming tradition, which later leads to more partying in the town and allows silver-haired alumni to relive the best years of their lives in the same bars they’ve frequented decades ago.

I shall finish here with a hope that this crude description helped you, dear reader, to get acquainted with the homecoming, a beloved tradition, which made its way from the streets and stadiums to movies, songs, novels and other items of popular American culture.

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[1] A popular brand of beer.

[2] A noteworthy local tradition, which deserves a separate blog post