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Introduction

Eliza Tibbets is best known as the founder of the California citrus industry.1 In 1873 she asked William Saunders2, Superintendent of the Experimental Gardens at the Department of Agriculture, to allow her to be a test grower of the new seedless oranges that he had recently imported from Bahia, Brazil.3 By planting and nurturing the orange trees that Saunders sent her, Tibbets revolutionized the citrus industry.4  Introduction of these oranges, later called the Washington Navel Orange, proved to be the most successful experiment of Saunders’ tenure,5 and one of the outstanding events in the economic and social development of California.6  For the next 60 years and more, a great industry was built up from the two small trees planted by Mrs. Eliza Tibbets.7

Biography

Born in Cincinnati on 5 Aug 1823, Eliza Maria Lovell was the sixth and last child of Oliver and Clarissa Downes Lovell. 8 Pioneers to early Ohio, the Lovells had come to Cincinnati from Boston in 1812, first by covered wagon, then by ark.9 The Lovell family quickly became prominent in the frontier town. Eliza’s father was, among other things, a town councilman, city councilman, President of the Fire Warden’s Association, a New Jerusalem minister, and a trustee of the city water works, the Woodward School,10 and the Academy of fine Arts.11 Her uncle “Commodore” John Downes was a well-known and highly decorated officer of the War withTripoli and the War of 1812.12 He commanded the Mediterranean Squadron and later the Pacific Squadron.13 Downes’ ship Potomac became the first U.S. naval vessel to circumnavigate the globe.14 The ship was also the first to host royalty -- the king and queen of the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands.15Three destroyers in the United States Navy have been named USS Downes in honor of him.16 The Cincinnati Lovells were Swedenborgians. Cincinnati Swedenborgians were intelligent and influential people who loved good literature, music, painting, the theater and other arts.17 Cincinnati church members included inventors Jacob, William & R. P. Resor, publisher Benjamin and sculptor Hiram Powers, clockmaker Luman Watson, artist Mary Menessier Beck, educators Alexander Kinmont, Frederic Eckstein, and M. M. Carll, and theatrical agent Sol Smith.18 In the Swedenborgian church 18 year-old Eliza Lovell married James Summons, a steam boat captain, the father of her son James, her only child to survive to adulthood.19 Eliza Lovell Tibbetts was also a spiritualist.20 When the Spiritualism spread throughout the nation and the globe during the mid-1800s, her father became President of the Spiritualist Society in Cincinnati; Eliza was considered an accomplished medium.21 noted Spiritualist lecturer Thomas Gales Forster his family lived with her in Clifton, Ohio In 1860.22 She was part of a coterie of spiritualists and free thinkers among Riverside pioneers in the 1870s.23 She died while visiting the spiritualist colony in Summerland, California in 1898. Lovell’s second husband, James Neal, was a commerce merchant who became a famous magnetic healer.24 The Neals moved to New York with her father and her son James Summons about 1861.25 James enlisted in New York State infantry at 17 under the name James B. Lovell.26 He completed his three year enlistment and was honorably discharged as the regimental postmaster.27 After the War Lovell married merchant Luther Tibbets in 1865.28 Like Riverside founders John Wesley North and James Porter Greves29, the Tibbetses moved into the South to with dreams of building a more racially tolerant society there and were driven out by unwelcoming locals.30 In 1867 they moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia, and opened a store.31  Luther campaigned for office as a Radical Republican and attempted to create an integrated community outside Fredericksburg.32 When they were driven from Frederickburg, the mother of a young African-American girl convinced them to take her child with them.33 Suffrage & Reform In Washington Eliza and LutherTibbets worked with Josephine S. Griffings, Congressman Benjamin F. Butler and other progressives on universal suffrage, freedmen’s rights and other social issues.34 After Luther left in 1870, Eliza continued her activism, especially in the area of woman suffrage. Woman suffrage activists were then using an ingenious legal argument, claiming that the U.S. Constitution already enfranchised women citizens.35 For a brief time in 1870ish citizens of the District of Columbia were enfranchised. The woman suffrage activists argued that they were “citizens” and therefore enfranchised under that law.36In 1871 seventy women tested the law in Washington, D.C. They marched to the regis­trar's office to register to vote, but were repulsed. Frederick Douglass accompanied the group which included Eliza M. Tibbets, Belva Lockwood, the first woman admitted to the Supreme Court Bar, educator Sara Spencer, Dr. Susan A. Edson, physician to President Garfield, pioneer Julia Archibald Holmes, and author E. D. E. N. Southworth, and Josephine S. Griffing.37 At the election, they attempted to vote, but were again re­fused. 38 The test cases, Spencer v. Board of Registration, and Webster v. Judges of Election were heard in the Supreme court of the District of Columbia.39 Women throughout the United States demonstrated in this way, testing the law with civil disobedience. Susan B. Anthony and Virginia F. Minor also challenged the discrimination against women in the courts.40 In the infamous Minor v. Happersett decision of 1875, however, the Court formally dissociated citizenship from voting rights.41

The Washington Navel Orange Orange History

The navel orange was not new when Eliza Tibbets introduced it to United States agriculture.42 A kind of navel was described and pictured by John Baptisti Ferrarius in 1646.43 Early Brazilian publications often refered to the Navel orange, or lavanja de ombigo.44 Sometimes plants mutate so that one branch or “sport” differs genetically from the rest of the tree.45 The Washington Navel orange appeared as a sport on a Selecta sweet orange tree in Bahia, Brazil.46 When a sport is desirable, as the navel orange was, asexual propagation can enable growers to avoid the complications of genetic segregation and recombination and spread the species.47The Washington or Bahia variety was extensively propagated in the vicinity of Bahia.48 Asexual propagation required a certain amount of effort and level of expertise49, but allowed widespread dissemination of a single genotype with highly desirable characteristics.50 The Washington navel is sterile - truly seedless and utterly devoid of pollen with pistils deformed in a way that makes seed production from the pollen of other varieties impossible.51 Hence, the Washington navel orange is propagated by grafting a bud from an existing tree onto separate (genetically distinct) rootstock.52 Nowadays many important fruit crops that are propagated asexually, including oranges, grapes, avocados, bananas and apples.53 In fact, all commercial citrus trees are grafted onto rootstock selected for adaptation to the soil, resistance to disease, and influence on fruit quality.54

Introduction of the Navel Orange

The citrus industry in California had also begun before Eliza Tibbets’ introduction of the Washington navel orange. However, there was no outstanding early and midseason variety of sweet orange generally adapted to the climate.55 Extant citrus was mostly seedling trees grown from seeds obtained locally or from the Missions.56 Growers experimented, but there was a lack of standardization in quality.57 Meanwhile, in his greenhouses on the Capitol Mall, Saunders experimented with imported plants for possible incorporation into American agriculture58. He he built an orange house on the Department grounds around 1867 and reported in 1871 that he was attempting to secure complete collections of citrus. 59 In 1869 the Commissioner of agriculture, brought him a letter about a fabulous local orange from a woman in Bahia, Brazil.60 It took some time and perseverance, but by 1871 Saunders was able to obtain from Bahia twelve newly budded navel orange trees in fairly good condition. 61 He had prepared a supply of young orange stocks into which he inserted buds from the new trees.62 When the orange trees were ready, Saunders mailed the first two out to Eliza Tibbets in Riverside.63  After that hundreds were sent to Florida, but none flourished.64 Eliza Tibbets planted the two trees in her garden in 1873.65 It is widely accepted that she took care of the two remaining trees using dishwater to keep them alive because the Tibbets lot was not connected to canal water.66 Agriculture officials attribute the success of the two trees that did flourish to Eliza Tibbets’ care.67 The first fruits borne by these trees were produced in the season of 1875-76.68 When the Washington navel orange was publicly displayed at a fair in 1879, the valuable commercial characteristics of the fruit, including their quality, shape, size, color, texture, and seedlessness, were immediately recognized.69 Tibbets’ orange was also ideally suited to Riverside’s semiarid weather, and its thick skin enabled it to be packed and shipped.70 The contrast between this new fruit and that of seedling trees was so striking that most new grove plantings were of Washington navel oranges.71Tibbets sold budwood from her trees to local nurserymen, which led to extensive plantings of nursery trees cloned from hers.72 Since then Washington navel orange budwood and trees have been taken from California across the seas to Japan, Australia, South Africa, and other tropical or semi-tropical districts.73

Legacy of Introduction

Tibbets’ success with the navel orange had led to a rapid increase in citrus planting,74 and the citrus planted was predominantly the Washington navel orange. The commercial success of these early orchards soon led to a wide-spread interest in this variety, so that by 1900 it was the most extensively grown citrus fruit in California.75 The growth that the Washington Navel orange produced in Riverside spread throughout the state, driving the state and even the national economy. Citrus assumed a major place in the state’s economy76 77By 1917 WNO culture was a $30 million per year industry in California.78 By 1933 the WNO industry in CA had grown to an industry with an annual income of $67 million. (Cal Statutes. From one million boxes of oranges in 1887 to more than 65.5 million boxes of oranges, lemons, and grapefruit in 1944, despite the depression years of the 1930s, the California citrus industry experienced nothing short of explosive growth,79 80 The success of Eliza Tibbets’s orange inspired irrigation projects which converted more desert to orange groves.81 The size, scale, and ingenuity of the irrigation structures in Riverside and surrounding area are considered one of the agricultural marvels of the age.82  By 1893 Riverside was the wealthiest city per capita in the United States.83 Money poured into California.84Tibbets’ orange led to an estimated $100 million of direct and indirect investment in citrus industry over the next 25 years.85 But Eliza Tibbets’ orange did not merely feed the wealth and growth of existing towns; new cities and towns, popped up, whose birth, existence, and future depended upon the condition of the orange market. 86 In 1886 alone new citrus towns were laid out in Rialto, Fontana, Bloomington, Redlands, Terracina, Mound City (Loma Linda), and South Riverside, (Corona).87  Irrigated communities like Etiwanda, Redlands, Ontario and many others were launched.88 The rapidly expanding citrus industry also stimulated the cap­ital market for real estate.89As the industry grew, land which had been regarded as worthless dramatically increased value.90 Not only did orange culture feed the land boom of the 1880s in Southern California;91 it allowed Riverside to survive when the land boom collapsed in 1888.92 The success of Tibbets’ orange stimulated related industries. Citrus built the foundations of the region's economic modernization before the great flood of defense funds began in World War II.93 Tibbets’ introduction of the Washington navel orange was largely responsible for the fruit packing houses, inventions in boxing machines, fruit wraps and the iced railroad car.94 By the mid 1880s five packing houses sprang up in Riverside.95 Many methods developed in the course of the growth of this industry, which had a wide application, to other fruit growing industries as well to citrus.96 The study and efforts of pioneers in the development of the California citrus industry led to the invention of fumigation, of orchard heaters, and of many other methods of culture. 97 In 1897-1898 Benjamin and Harrison Wright invented and patented a mechanized orange washer. By the end of 1898, two-thirds of Riverside’s packinghouses were using the machines.98 At the turn of the centuring Stebler and Parker began manufacturing citrus packing machinery in Riverside independent of each other. The companies, which merged in 1922, became the California Iron Works, and later still Food Machinery Corporation (today’s FMC).99 The Santa Fe Rail Road opened a direct to Riverside in 1886 allowing direct shipment to the east.100 Eight years later the first refrigerated rail cars ship oranges from Riverside to the east on the Santa Fe Rail Road. Another illustration of the results of the success of the citrus industry in California was the organization of the growers into an exchange for the co-operative handling of their crop and its distribution. 101 California Fruit Growers Exchange, a cooperative marketing association made up of local growers was founded in 1893; it is now known as Sunkist.102 A key feature of the growth of the Washington Navel orange industry was a scientific approach to improvement. Study of propagation culture handling, transportation and other phases of producing distributing and marketing the crop was largely responsible for advancements used not only with citrus but also in other fruit industries. In 1893 Cyanide gas was used to fight citrus scale.103 A U. S. Department of Agriculture scientist helped growers to harness nature's biological wrath during the "decay crisis" of 1905-1907, when alarming proportions of fruit spoiled in transit, and wed the industry to the scientific expertise of the USDA.104 Growers, scientists, and workers transformed the natural and social landscape of California, turning it into a factory for the production of millions of oranges.105Orange growers in California developed the commercialized agriculture that only spread to the rest of the country a generation later.106 1906 University of California established in Riverside its Citrus Experiment Station, the beginnings of the Riverside of the University of California.Originally located on the slope of Mt. Rubidoux, the station.107 nsti­tutionalized the scientific expertise, support, and presence of the state's university and the federal gov­ernment in the citrus industry, and brought quality control to the first link in the corpo­rate agricultural chain.108. In a field department was created which provided member growers with scientific and practical horticultural advice and direction that ultimately led to huge gains in productivity.109 Tibbets’ orange allowed agriculture in California to survive transition from wheat. Wheat had been the single most profitable crop statewide between 1870 and 1900 as California became one of the largest grain producers in the nation.110 Sometime about 1880 many agriculturalists in the central valley and socal began to convert to fruit. Soil and climate were obviously conducive to such a conversion. 111 After the turn of the century wheat exports began a rapid decline prompted by intense canadian and russian competition and declining grain yeilds due to soil depletion.112 As the soil became depleted by wheat growing, they were subdivided and used for horticulture. Agriculture thus came to provide a firm foundation for the state’s economy.

Conclusion The progeny trees derived from this parent source tree continues to be the most popular navel grown in California.113 In the estimation of many, the fruit of the Washington navel remains the finest in size, flavor, quality, lack of seed, low rag and excellent holding capacity when the fruit is held on the tree. The navel orange remains as one of the most popular of all of the varieties of fresh fruit whether produced in California, Peru, South Africa, or Australia.114 Millions of trees were propagated from progeny of this mother tree, not only in California, but worldwide.115

References

From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1824-1909http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=674068061&sid=6&Fmt=3&clientId=1566&RQT=309&VName=PQD SURROUNDINGS / RIVERSIDE; A Navel Worth Gazing At: Tree Made History; Here stands the last of the two original Washington navel orange trees. Their buds spawned much of the region's citrus industry.; [HOME EDITION] Hal S. Barron, Citriculture and Southern California New Historical Perspectives, An Introduction. California History, Spring 1995, 3-6.

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Alamillo, Jose Manuel "Bitter-sweet communities: Mexican workers and citrus growers on the California landscape, 1880--1941". Ph.D. diss., University of California, Irvine, 2000. In ProQuest Digital Dissertations [database on-line]; available from http://www.proquest.com/ (publication number AAT 9954170; accessed January 31, 2008).

Angela G Ray, Cindy Koenig Richards. "Inventing Citizens, Imagining Gender Justice: The Suffrage Rhetoric of Virginia and Francis Minor." The Quarterly Journal of Speech 93, no. 4 (November 1, 2007): 375. http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed January 31, 2008).

Washington navel orange - Important California citrus fruit originated in Brazil nearly a century ago, brought to United States in 1869 - Comparison of culture in California and Brazil - Importance of bud mutations The journal of heredity [0022-1503] Shamel yr:1915 vol:6 pg:435 -445

Klotz, Esther. "Eliza Tibbets and Her Washington Navel Orange Trees." In A History of Citrus in the Riverside Area. 2nd ed., 13-25. San Bernardino, CA: Riverside Museum Press, 1989.

Klotz, Esther and Kevin Hallaren. "Citrus Chronology." In A History of Citrus in the Riverside Area. 2nd ed., 26-29. San Bernardino, CA: Riverside Museum Press, 1989. Hal S. Barron, CITRICULTURE And Southern California NEW HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES, An Introduction. California History, Spring 1995, 3-5

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Shamel, A[rchibald] D. and Carl S. Pomeroy. The Washington Navel Orange. Citrus Publication No.3. Riverside, CA: Riverside Chamber of Commerce, 1933. Links Selected Papers of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Vol 2: Against an Aristocracy of Sex, 1866-1873; Ann D Gordon ed., New Brunswick, N. J.; Rutgers, 2000 TOBEY Ronald and Charles Wetherel, (1995) The Citrus Industry And The Revolution Of Corporate Capitalism In Southern California, 1887-1994. California History, Spring 1995, 6-20.

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