fighting ended, Lee Christmas settled down, becoming a general in the Honduran army, and marrying Ida Culotta, the eighteen-year-old daughter of one of Zemurrayâs colleagues.)
UNITED FRUIT DIDNâT LIKE COMPETITION , and it usually dealt with rivals in the standard way: It crushed them in price wars. It had gained partial control of the British banana market by purchasing part of Elders & Fyffes, the companyâs largest rival in Jamaica (the company, now simply Fyffes, remains the United Kingdomâs largest banana importer, though Chiquita sold it to an Irish conglomerate in 1986). In 1912, United Fruit drove Atlantic Fruit, its chief rival in Costa Rica, into bankruptcy, taking possession of the stricken companyâs land, workers, and railroads.
But Sam Zemurray was too small. Andrew Preston, the proper Bostonian, barely admitted to knowing who the foreign-born, Jewish Zemurray was when he testified at a congressional antitrust hearing in 1910. Even though United Fruit also had holdings in Honduras, it still didnât appear to regard Zemurray as a proper rival (and wouldnât, for at least fifteen more years). The company had other battles to fight. American soldiers were stationed on its behalf as police officers in Panama in 1918 and as union busters in Guatemalaâwhere it was granted a hundred-kilometer-wide ministateâtwo years later. Troops were twice called on to âmonitorâ elections in Honduras and returned to Panama in 1925 to break up a plantation strike.
BY THE LATE 1920S , United Fruit was worth over $100 million. It had 67,000 employees and owned 1.6 million acres of land. It had business interests in thirty-two countries. It operated everything from churches to laundries. It had strung 3,500 miles of telegraph and telephone lines, including a system of ship-to-shore transmission it invented specifically for the purpose of making sure banana loaders were ready, at the docks, when cargo vessels came in. Time is of the essence with perishable fruit. As soon as the workers received the signal, theyâd work, without rest, for up to seventy-two hours, harvesting and loading the fruit. The company was selling bananas as far away as Paris and was also becoming a market leader in sugar, cocoa, and coffee. In addition to running his fruit business, Andrew Preston was president of two banks, one insurance company, and a steel manufacturer. Minor C. Keith had become so powerful that he was called by many âthe uncrowned king of Central America.â
Bananas continued to change life in the United States. Items that we consider mealtime standards today didnât exist until United Fruit invented them. Company research found that mothers were feeding mashed bananas to their babies, for example. So United Fruit hired doctors to endorse the practice and launched advertisements to drive the point home. In 1924, writes Virginia Scott Jenkins, the company scored what would be its biggest culinary hit: The United Fruit test kitchens suggested that the perfect breakfast for a busy, modern family would consist of bananas sliced into corn flakes with milk. It wasnât just the recipe that broke new ground. It was also the coupons, pioneered by the company, packed inside cereal boxes (redeemable for free bananas that the cereal companies, not the fruit importer, paid for). The company made sure that children knew about bananas, too. It set up an official âeducation department,â devoted to publishing textbooks and curriculum materials that subtly provided information about the fruit.
United Fruit also added a new element to its political strategy. If military action was impractical (U.S. troops might be unavailable or force precluded by situations on the ground), Central Americaâs geography became an ally. The regionâs countries were small and easy to move between. There were plenty of natural ports on both the eastern and western coasts, and bananas could be
UNITED FRUIT DIDNâT LIKE COMPETITION , and it usually dealt with rivals in the standard way: It crushed them in price wars. It had gained partial control of the British banana market by purchasing part of Elders & Fyffes, the companyâs largest rival in Jamaica (the company, now simply Fyffes, remains the United Kingdomâs largest banana importer, though Chiquita sold it to an Irish conglomerate in 1986). In 1912, United Fruit drove Atlantic Fruit, its chief rival in Costa Rica, into bankruptcy, taking possession of the stricken companyâs land, workers, and railroads.
But Sam Zemurray was too small. Andrew Preston, the proper Bostonian, barely admitted to knowing who the foreign-born, Jewish Zemurray was when he testified at a congressional antitrust hearing in 1910. Even though United Fruit also had holdings in Honduras, it still didnât appear to regard Zemurray as a proper rival (and wouldnât, for at least fifteen more years). The company had other battles to fight. American soldiers were stationed on its behalf as police officers in Panama in 1918 and as union busters in Guatemalaâwhere it was granted a hundred-kilometer-wide ministateâtwo years later. Troops were twice called on to âmonitorâ elections in Honduras and returned to Panama in 1925 to break up a plantation strike.
BY THE LATE 1920S , United Fruit was worth over $100 million. It had 67,000 employees and owned 1.6 million acres of land. It had business interests in thirty-two countries. It operated everything from churches to laundries. It had strung 3,500 miles of telegraph and telephone lines, including a system of ship-to-shore transmission it invented specifically for the purpose of making sure banana loaders were ready, at the docks, when cargo vessels came in. Time is of the essence with perishable fruit. As soon as the workers received the signal, theyâd work, without rest, for up to seventy-two hours, harvesting and loading the fruit. The company was selling bananas as far away as Paris and was also becoming a market leader in sugar, cocoa, and coffee. In addition to running his fruit business, Andrew Preston was president of two banks, one insurance company, and a steel manufacturer. Minor C. Keith had become so powerful that he was called by many âthe uncrowned king of Central America.â
Bananas continued to change life in the United States. Items that we consider mealtime standards today didnât exist until United Fruit invented them. Company research found that mothers were feeding mashed bananas to their babies, for example. So United Fruit hired doctors to endorse the practice and launched advertisements to drive the point home. In 1924, writes Virginia Scott Jenkins, the company scored what would be its biggest culinary hit: The United Fruit test kitchens suggested that the perfect breakfast for a busy, modern family would consist of bananas sliced into corn flakes with milk. It wasnât just the recipe that broke new ground. It was also the coupons, pioneered by the company, packed inside cereal boxes (redeemable for free bananas that the cereal companies, not the fruit importer, paid for). The company made sure that children knew about bananas, too. It set up an official âeducation department,â devoted to publishing textbooks and curriculum materials that subtly provided information about the fruit.
United Fruit also added a new element to its political strategy. If military action was impractical (U.S. troops might be unavailable or force precluded by situations on the ground), Central Americaâs geography became an ally. The regionâs countries were small and easy to move between. There were plenty of natural ports on both the eastern and western coasts, and bananas could be
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