[Sunkist Oranges]

This tidy and charming album tells an informative tale of the Sunkist brand orange. From seed sowing and to product distribution, the album reads like a story book that plainly lays out the entire vertical process, emphasizing the attention to care and the specialization resulting from “years of scientific study coupled with modern industry and resourcefulness.” Every spread contains text on the left hand page and the corresponding photograph on the right (one photograph however is missing its accompanying text).

The photographs are (unsurprisingly) sharp and sun-soaked, showing how tender buds are painstakingly nurtured into fruit-bearing “pedigreed trees.” With gloved hands, tanned farmhands gingerly clip picturesque oranges from the foliage in the vistas of San Bernardino, Orange, and Ventura counties. The crops are monitored at all times; they are pruned, irrigated, guarded from pests, and even heated on particularly cold nights. After three years of meticulous cultivation, the oranges are taken to one of 200 packing houses to be inspected, washed, and packed. Young women in neat uniforms place about half of the oranges that meet the Sunkist standards into crates that will be cooled and distributed through the fruit exchange by the millions.

In 1893, a coalition of citrus farmers in Claremont founded the Southern California Fruit Exchange which later became the Sunkist Growers in 1907. Today, Sunkist Growers Incorporated is America’s largest produce shipping company.

Not in OCLC.