The El Cajon, California, Raisin Industry: An Exercise in Gilded Age Capitalism

Abstract

the late nineteenth and early twentieth century American agriculture transformed itself from subsistence family farming to one with heavy emphasis on agribusiness. As part of the transformation farmers introduced new crops, better cultivation techniques and new methods of production, processing and marketing. One of those new crops was raisins. Various agricultural organizations praised the commercial prospects of raisin production and growers responded quickly. This resulted in a drop of raisin imports from 53,703,220 pounds in 18841 to 1,024,296 pounds by 1916.2 As the industry grew California came to dominate it. Thus by 1916 that state alone produced 170,000,000 pounds of raisins, which brought in $41,000,000 to the state's economy.3 By the twentieth century California and the United States dominated the world raisin market.