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The completion of the transcontinental railroad in the 1880's changed the marketing methods of fruit. This resulted in a need to differentiate one grower's product from another in order to capture the attention of the wholesalers and customers back east.
Initial identification on citrus boxes consisted of stenciling, stamping or branding the wooden crates. The earliest paper examples consisted of six inch round paper labels, pasted in the middle of a stenciled rectangular pattern. The 10" x 11" label (9" x 13 " for lemon labels) replaced these initial efforts and remained the industry standard between 1880 and 1950.
The designs of California citrus labels can be divided into three stylistic periods. The naturalistic period, from the mid 1880's to the end of World War I, illustrated subjects in a realistic manner using stone lithography, which printed up to six colors to make the final image. Labels showed local subjects like the southern California scenery, the groves, the growers' homes, and orange harvesting.
The advertising period in citrus labels (1920-1935) reflected two trends: the development of product advertising and the nation's emphasis on youth and vitality. The rise of potential customers, as the population shifted to urban settings, resulted in an increased use of advertising on labels made to appeal to the eastern buyer, a switch from labels reflecting the grower's or packer's own interests. In 1918, a manager of the California Fruit Growers Association wrote a booklet recommending that the labels be distinctive, simple, content oriented with short brand names. These suggestions were made to grab the wholesaler's attention and to link the label with the product.
The commercial art period (1935-1955) marks the final stage in the development of the citrus label. The use of offset photolithography marked the major change in label designs. Airbrushing and color gradation had not been possible using the older techniques. Photolithography also decreased advertising costs, a needed measure for businesses operating during the Depression. The Depression also caused more competition between the various brands. Few new designs were introduced, as the citrus associations continued to use older labels with some updating. Those labels introduced during the commercial art period used bold colors and block letters to attract the buyer's attention.
Finally in the mid 1950's, cardboard boxes with pre-printed labels on the box ends replaced the older wooden crates and their illustrated labels.
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