Abstract: This article focuses on the relationships between individuals along the innovation chain that made the rapid mechanization of the tomato harvest possible in 1960s California. Based on oral histories, extension documents, trade journal stories and advertising materials, it argues that two factors enabled the rapid shift from hand to machine labor. First, the Bracero Program's political fragility combined with the economic importance of California's tomato crops to produce an imagined future shortage of labor, motivating the University of California and regional growers to prioritize research on tomato mechanization. Second, mechanizing tomatoes enabled men from different backgrounds to think in ways that were highly desirable given the era's emphasis on managerial and scientific systems. These factors worked in tandem to produce a machine that could harvest tomatoes, and a desire on the part of those who made significant investments to purchase and implement those machines, before the end of Bracero labor in 1964 crystallized the economic and socio-political rewards that would follow. By emphasizing the second set of factors, the article illuminates the importance of personal rewards in the mechanization process along the innovation chain from design, development and dissemination to implementation. Keywords: BRACERO PROGRAM; EXTENSION AGENTS; GENDER; INNOVATION; MARKETING; MASCULINITY; MECHANIZATION; TOMATO HARVESTING; UC DAVIS
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Yarrington, Doug;
(2014)
Tax Farming, Liquor, and the Quest for Fiscal Modernity in Venezuela, 1908--1935
(/isis/citation/CBB001202068/)
Article
Hamilton, Shane;
(2014)
Agribusiness, the Family Farm, and the Politics of Technological Determinism in the Post--World War II United States
(/isis/citation/CBB001421293/)
Article
Fahy, Sandra;
(2012)
Famine Talk: Communication Styles and Socio-political Awareness in 1990s North Korea
(/isis/citation/CBB001320903/)
Book
Laura J. Miller;
(2017)
Building Nature's Market: The Business and Politics of Natural Foods
(/isis/citation/CBB811397129/)
Book
Wallach, Jennifer Jensen;
(2013)
How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food and Culture
(/isis/citation/CBB001202133/)
Article
Uekōtter, Frank;
(2014)
Why Panaceas Work: Recasting Science, Knowledge, and Fertilizer Interests in German Agriculture
(/isis/citation/CBB001320830/)
Article
Erik Jönsson;
Tobias Linné;
Ally McCrow-Young;
(2019)
Many Meats and Many Milks? The Ontological Politics of a Proposed Post-animal Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB717864659/)
Book
Edge, John T;
Engelhardt, Elizabeth S D;
Ownby, Ted;
(2013)
The Larder: Food Studies Methods from the American South
(/isis/citation/CBB001422249/)
Article
Vyzdryk, Vitaliy;
(2013)
Technical Support of Galician Village by Providing Agricultural Machinery in the Interwar Period
(/isis/citation/CBB001321266/)
Book
Henke, Christopher R.;
(2008)
Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power: Science and Industrial Agriculture in California
(/isis/citation/CBB000950314/)
Book
Brassley, Paul;
Segers, Yves;
Molle, Leen van;
(2012)
War, Agriculture and Food: Rural Europe from the 1930s to the 1950s
(/isis/citation/CBB001201976/)
Thesis
Shealy, Gregory P.;
(2009)
The Mechanized Harvester in Imperial Germany: The Cultural Biography of a Single Transatlantic Commodity
(/isis/citation/CBB001562857/)
Book
Lisa Haushofer;
(2022)
Wonder Foods: The Science and Commerce of Nutrition
(/isis/citation/CBB755765560/)
Book
Thick, Malcolm;
(2010)
Sir Hugh Plat: The Search for Useful Knowledge in Early Modern London
(/isis/citation/CBB001201969/)
Book
Andrea S. Wiley;
(2014)
Cultures of Milk: The Biology and Meaning of Dairy Products in the United States and India
(/isis/citation/CBB026246346/)
Article
Sablani, Shyam S.;
(2014)
75 Years of IFT: Food Engineering and Physical Properties, and Nanoscale Food Science, Engineering and Technology in JFS---1936 to Present
(/isis/citation/CBB001320874/)
Chapter
Bugos, Glenn E.;
(2012)
Aerospace in the Rest of California: The View from Silicon Valley
(/isis/citation/CBB001201077/)
Article
Meyer, Carrie A.;
(2013)
The Farm Debut of the Gasoline Engine
(/isis/citation/CBB001320819/)
Book
Sackman, Douglas Cazaux;
(2005)
Orange Empire: California and the Fruits of Eden
(/isis/citation/CBB000700542/)
Article
Fernando Collantes;
(2019)
Why did the industrial diet triumph? The massification of dairy consumption in Spain, 1965–90
(/isis/citation/CBB245733911/)
Be the first to comment!