What Exactly Is Crate Label Art?

Since Western settlers discovered there was more wealth in oranges than in gold, the fruit-crate label has more truly represented the California dream of striking it rich than the early cries of "Eureka!"

The California Citrus Boom began when two navel orange trees were introduced to North America from Brazil by the first settlers to Riverside in 1873.

During the Spring of 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt traveled to Riverside, California by train.  On the morning of May 8, the President participated in a tree planting ceremony at the Mission Inn.  He transplanted one of Riverside's two famous parent navel orange trees that were in the Court of the Birds.  These trees launched a citrus economy that made Riverside the richest American city of the 1890s.

Although the California soil may have been as rich as gold, fruit farmers needed a way to market their golden globes to East Coast buyers.  To attract the eye of buyers, the fruit-crate label business was born.

In the 70 years between the 1880s and the 1950s, millions of colorful paper labels were used by America's fruit and vegetable growers to advertise their wooden boxes of fresh produce that was shipped throughout the nation and the world.

Collectors value crate art for its colorful design and it ablility to trace the social and political history of American culture.

Beginning primarily in the southern regions of California, labels became an industrywide necessity to communicate the appeal of fresh produce to Eastern buyers.  In the fast-paced setting of Eastern auction halls and commission markets, buyers could not see the fruit, which was individually packed in tissue paper and sealed in a wooden box.  The brightly colored, attractively designed label soon became the growers' chief advertising device, the symbolic window from which the fruit could be judged.

In wholesale auction yards, the more vivid, powerful and attractive the illustration, the better the produce would sell.  The labels included nearly every theme, especially regional and national history and scenery.  Crate art included Indians, children, the Gold Rush, the old West, politics, the romantic era, war, fierce animals, beautiful women and luscious vignettes of fruits and vegetables.

The first products shipped in this way were oranges and lemons from Southern California, grapes and raisins from the Central Valley, and apples, pears and other tree fruits from Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia.

After California growers began using crate labels in the 1880s, the idea caught on.  Labels were used in 43 states and in such countries as Argentina, Spain and Australia.

A SLICE IN TIME is the largest store in the world reproducing these beautiful glimpses into our heritage and we are honored and pleased to offer them to the public at an affordable price.