Eliza Tibbets
Encyclopedia
Eliza Tibbets on her ranch in Riverside, California
with husband Luther C. Tibbets
, is known as growing the first Washington navel orange
and founding the citrus industry
and cultural landscape
of orange groves in California
, United States
. Eliza Tibbets was a plantswoman
, horticulturist, agronomist
, pioneer
California farmer
, spiritualist, abolitionist, universal suffragist
, and renowned Riverside citizen.
In 1873, Eliza Tibbets convinced William Saunders, who was a botanist, nurseryman, landscape gardener, horticulturist, and artist
, to test a new citrus plant at her ranch in Riverside. Saunders, among many other things, had already designed the Soldier's National Cemetery at Gettysburg
and the Lincoln Tomb Monument
in Springfield, Illinois
. With five other horticulturists he founded The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry in 1867. As the nation’s Chief Experimental Horticulturalist, he was responsible for the introduction of many fruit
s and vegetable
s to American agriculture. As Superintendent of the fledgling United States Bureau of Agriculture
, he selected Tibbets as a test grower for his new seedless oranges
collected from the Bahia
region, on the Atlantic coast north of Rio de Janiero in Brazil
. By planting and nurturing the Washington Navel Orange trees that Saunders had sent to her, Tibbets revolutionized the citrus industry in Southern California
and beyond.
in 1812, first by covered wagon
, then by ark (river boat)
. The Lovell family 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, and the Academy of fine Arts.
Her uncle “Commodore” John Downes
was a well-known and highly decorated officer of the War with Tripoli and the War of 1812
. He commanded the Mediterranean Squadron and later the Pacific Squadron. Downes’ ship Potomac
became the first U.S. naval vessel to circumnavigate the globe. The ship was also the first to host royalty—the king and queen of the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands
. Three destroyers in the United States Navy have been named USS Downes
in honor of him.
The Cincinnati Lovells were Swedenborgians, members of the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem based on the writings of Swedish scientist and mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg
. Cincinnati Swedenborgians were intelligent, cultured, and influential people who loved good literature, music, painting, the theater and other arts. 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.
Eliza Lovell Summons-Tibbetts was also a spiritualist. When the Spiritualism
spread throughout the nation and the globe during the mid-19th century, her father Oliver Lovell became President of the spiritualist society in Cincinnati. Her sister Clara Lovell Smith's sealed letter was divined by spiritualist physician John Redmond, who discussed the family in one of his books. Eliza herself was considered an accomplished medium.
Eliza Lovell’s second husband, James Neal, was a commerce merchant who became a well-known healing medium. Noted Spiritualist lecturer Thomas Gales Forster and his family lived with James and Eliza Lovell Neal in Clifton, Ohio in 1860. The Neals moved to New York
with her father and her son James Summons about 1861. James enlisted in New York State infantry at 17 under the name James B. Lovell. He completed his three year enlistment and was honorably discharged as the regimental postmaster.
Luther C. Tibbets
. He was an abolitionist, like Riverside city founders John Wesley North and James Porter Greves. Judge John Wesley North, while a staunch temperance-minded abolitionist in Tennessee was ostracized after he talked a crowd out of lynching a black man. Dr. Greves worked at Beaumont, South Carolina
, the 'colony of freedmen' in South Carolina
until his health failed. The Tibbetses moved into the South in Tennessee
with dreams of building a more racially tolerant society there and were driven out by unwelcoming locals. In 1867 they moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia
, and opened a local store. Luther campaigned for office as a Radical Republican
and attempted to create an integrated community outside Fredericksburg. When they were driven from Frederickburg, the mother of a young African-American girl convinced them to take her child with them.
In Washington, D.C.
Eliza and Luther Tibbets worked with Josephine S. Griffings
, Congressman Benjamin F. Butler
and other progressives on universal suffrage
, freedmen’s rights and other social issues. 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. For a brief time in 1870s citizens of the District of Columbia were enfranchised. DC woman suffrage activists argued that they were “citizens” and therefore enfranchised under that law. In 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, author E. D. E. N. Southworth
, and founder of the Freedman's Bureau, Josephine S. Griffing. At the election, they attempted to vote, but were again refused. Their test cases, Spencer v. Board of Registration, and Webster v. Judges of Election were heard in the Supreme court of the District of Columbia. Women throughout the United States, including Susan B. Anthony
and Virginia Minor
demonstrated in this way, testing the law with civil disobedience. In the Minor v. Happersett
decision of 1875, however, the Court formally dissociated citizenship from voting rights.
orchard
s, as described below.
Tibbets died while visiting the spiritualist colony in Summerland
, on the coast near Santa Barbara, California
, in 1898. She was buried at Riverside's Evergreen Cemetery
.
A statue of Tibbets produced by artist Guy Angelo Wilson is planned for the pedestrian mall beside the historic Mission Inn
in Riverside. The Tibbets memorial will be the first statue in Riverside to commemorate a woman.
The California Citrus State Historic Park
preserves the era of her contribution to the citrus industry.
with pistils deformed in a way that makes seed production from the pollen of other varieties impossible. Hence, the Washington navel orange is propagated by grafting
a bud from an existing tree onto separate (genetically distinct) rootstock
. The Washington Navel orange is particularly prone to a type of mutation
in which one branch or “sport” differs genetically from the rest of the tree. It first appeared as a sport on a Selecta sweet orange tree in Bahia, Brazil. A desirable sport like this enables growers to avoid the complications of genetic segregation and recombination by spreading the species through asexual propagation. Although asexual propagation required a certain amount of effort and level of expertise, this sport was extensively propagated in the vicinity of Bahia. Nowadays many important fruit crops are propagated asexually, including oranges, grapes, avocados, bananas and apples. In fact, all commercial citrus trees are grafted onto rootstock selected for adaptation to the soil, resistance to disease, and influence on fruit quality.
. Growers experimented, but there was a lack of standardization in quality.
Meanwhile, in his greenhouses on the National Mall
, Saunders experimented with imported plants for possible incorporation into American agriculture. 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.
In 1869 the Commissioner of agriculture, brought him a letter about a fabulous local orange from a woman in Bahia, Brazil. 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. He had prepared a supply of young orange stocks into which he inserted buds from the new trees. "That lady called here and was anxious to get some of these plants for her place, and I sent two of them by mail". When the orange trees were ready, Saunders mailed the first two out to Eliza Tibbets in Riverside, California
.
After that hundreds of Bahia orange trees were sent to Florida, but none flourished. Eliza Tibbets planted the two trees in her garden in 1873. 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. Agriculture officials attribute the success of the two trees that did flourish to Eliza Tibbets’ care.
The first fruits borne by these trees were produced in the season of 1875-76. 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. Tibbets’ orange was also ideally suited to Riverside’s semiarid weather, and its thick skin enabled it to be packed and shipped. The contrast between this new fruit and that of seedling trees was so striking that most new grove plantings were of Washington navel oranges. Tibbets sold budwood from her trees to local nurserymen, which led to extensive plantings of nursery trees cloned from hers. 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.
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. Sometime about 1880 many agriculturalists in the central valley and Southern California began to convert to fruit. Soil and climate were obviously conducive to such a conversion. After the turn of the 20th century wheat exports began a rapid decline prompted by intense Canadian and Russian competition and declining grain yields due to soil depletion. 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.
The success of Eliza Tibbets’s orange inspired irrigation
projects which converted more desert to orange groves. The size, scale, and ingenuity of the irrigation structures in Riverside and surrounding area are considered one of the agricultural marvels of the age. By 1893 Riverside was the wealthiest city per capita in the United States. Money poured into California. Tibbets’ orange led to an estimated $100 million of direct and indirect investment in citrus industry over the next 25 years. 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. In 1886 alone new citrus towns were laid out in
Rialto, Fontana, Bloomington, Redlands, Terracina, Mound City (Loma Linda), and South Riverside, (Corona). Irrigated communities like Etiwanda, Redlands, Ontario and many others were launched.
The rapidly expanding citrus industry also stimulated the capital market for real estate
. As the industry grew, land which had been regarded as worthless dramatically increased value. Not only did orange culture feed the land boom of the 1880s in Southern California; it allowed Riverside to survive when the land boom collapsed in 1888. (See also: Panic of 1893
.) 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. Tibbets’
introduction of the Washington navel orange was largely responsible for the fruit packing house
s, inventions in boxing machines, fruit wraps and the iced railroad car.
By the mid 1880s five packing houses sprang up in Riverside. 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.
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. 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. 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 Corp.
). The Santa Fe Railroad opened a direct to Riverside in 1886 allowing direct shipment to the east. Eight years later the first refrigerated rail cars
shipped oranges from Riverside to the east on the Santa Fe Railroad.
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. California Fruit Growers Exchange, a cooperative marketing association made up of local growers was founded in 1893; it is now known as Sunkist Growers, Incorporated
.
Growers, scientists, and workers transformed the natural and social landscape of California, turning it into a factory for the production of millions of oranges. Orange growers in California developed the commercialized agriculture that only spread to the rest of the country a generation later. In 1906, the University of California
established in Riverside its Citrus Experiment Station
, the beginnings of the University of California, Riverside
. Originally located on the slope of Mount Rubidoux, the station institutionalized 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. 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.
Riverside, California
Riverside is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, and the county seat of the eponymous county. Named for its location beside the Santa Ana River, it is the largest city in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area of Southern California, 4th largest inland California...
with husband Luther C. Tibbets
Luther C. Tibbets
Luther Calvin Tibbets was born in South Berwick, York County, Maine. He and his wife Eliza Tibbets grew the first Washington Navel orange in Riverside, California in 1871, and founded the California citrus industry.-History:...
, is known as growing the first Washington navel orange
Orange (fruit)
An orange—specifically, the sweet orange—is the citrus Citrus × sinensis and its fruit. It is the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world....
and founding the citrus industry
Citrus production
Citrus fruits are the highest value fruit crop in terms of international trade. There are two main markets for citrus fruit:* the fresh fruit market* the processed citrus fruits market...
and cultural landscape
Cultural landscape
Cultural Landscapes have been defined by the World Heritage Committee as distinct geographical areas or properties uniquely "..represent[ing] the combined work of nature and of man.."....
of orange groves in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Eliza Tibbets was a plantswoman
Plantsman
A plantsman is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable gardener , nurseryman or nurserywoman. "Plantsman" can refer to a male or female person, though the terms plantswoman, or even plantsperson, are sometimes used....
, horticulturist, agronomist
Agronomist
An agronomist is a scientist who specializes in agronomy, which is the science of utilizing plants for food, fuel, feed, and fiber. An agronomist is an expert in agricultural and allied sciences, with the exception veterinary sciences.Agronomists deal with interactions between plants, soils, and...
, pioneer
American pioneer
American pioneers are any of the people in American history who migrated west to join in settling and developing new areas. The term especially refers to those who were going to settle any territory which had previously not been settled or developed by European or American society, although the...
California farmer
Farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...
, spiritualist, abolitionist, universal suffragist
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
, and renowned Riverside citizen.
Initial navel testing
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, to test a new citrus plant at her ranch in Riverside. Saunders, among many other things, had already designed the Soldier's National Cemetery at Gettysburg
Gettysburg National Cemetery
The Gettysburg National Cemetery is located on Cemetery Hill in the Gettysburg Battlefield near the borough of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and adjacent to Evergreen Cemetery to the south...
and the Lincoln Tomb Monument
Lincoln Tomb
Lincoln's Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois, is the final resting place of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and three of their four sons. The monument is owned and administered by the State of Illinois as Lincoln Tomb State...
in Springfield, Illinois
Springfield, Illinois
Springfield is the third and current capital of the US state of Illinois and the county seat of Sangamon County with a population of 117,400 , making it the sixth most populated city in the state and the second most populated Illinois city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area...
. With five other horticulturists he founded The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry in 1867. As the nation’s Chief Experimental Horticulturalist, he was responsible for the introduction of many fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
s and vegetable
Vegetable
The noun vegetable usually means an edible plant or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit or seed. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant....
s to American agriculture. As Superintendent of the fledgling United States Bureau of Agriculture
United States Department of Agriculture
The United States Department of Agriculture is the United States federal executive department responsible for developing and executing U.S. federal government policy on farming, agriculture, and food...
, he selected Tibbets as a test grower for his new seedless oranges
Orange (fruit)
An orange—specifically, the sweet orange—is the citrus Citrus × sinensis and its fruit. It is the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world....
collected from the Bahia
Bahia
Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...
region, on the Atlantic coast north of Rio de Janiero in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. By planting and nurturing the Washington Navel Orange trees that Saunders had sent to her, Tibbets revolutionized the citrus industry in Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
and beyond.
Navel introduction
Introduction of these oranges, later called the Washington navel orange, proved to be the most successful experiment of Saunders’s tenure, and one of the outstanding events in the economic and social development of California. For the next 60 years and more, a great industry was built up from the two small trees planted by Eliza Tibbets.Early years
Born in Cincinnati on August 5, 1823, Eliza Maria Lovell was the youngest child of Oliver and Clarissa Downes Lovell. Pioneers to early Ohio, the Lovells had come to Cincinnati from BostonBoston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
in 1812, first by covered wagon
Conestoga wagon
The Conestoga wagon is a heavy, broad-wheeled covered wagon that was used extensively during the late 18th century and the 19th century in the United States and sometimes in Canada as well. It was large enough to transport loads up to 8 tons , and was drawn by horses, mules or oxen...
, then by ark (river boat)
Ark (river boat)
An ark was a temporary boat used for river transport in eastern North America before canals and railroads made them obsolete.Arks were built primarily to carry cargo downriver on the spring freshet to carry lumber or logs and agricultural produce to a port city downriver.Upon arrival, the cargo was...
. The Lovell family 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, and the Academy of fine Arts.
Her uncle “Commodore” John Downes
John Downes (naval officer)
Commodore John Downes was an officer in the United States Navy, whose service covered the first half of the 19th century.-Early life and career:...
was a well-known and highly decorated officer of the War with Tripoli and the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
. He commanded the Mediterranean Squadron and later the Pacific Squadron. Downes’ ship Potomac
USS Potomac
USS Potomac or USNS Potomac may refer to one of these United States Navy ships:, a frigate in commission from 1831 to 1877, a whaler purchased in 1861 and sunk as part of the "Stone Fleet" in 1862, a tug in commission from 1898 to 1922, a presidential yacht in service from 1936 to 1945, an oiler in...
became the first U.S. naval vessel to circumnavigate the globe. The ship was also the first to host royalty—the king and queen of the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands
Hawaiian Islands
The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...
. Three destroyers in the United States Navy have been named USS Downes
USS Downes
Three ships of the United States Navy have been named Downes, in honor of Captain John Downes., a Cassin-class destroyer, commissioned in 1915, transferred to the United States Coast Guard and finally sold in 1934., a Mahan-class destroyer, commissioned in 1936 and decommissioned in 1945., a...
in honor of him.
The Cincinnati Lovells were Swedenborgians, members of the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem based on the writings of Swedish scientist and mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg
was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, and theologian. He has been termed a Christian mystic by some sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica online version, and the Encyclopedia of Religion , which starts its article with the description that he was a "Swedish scientist and mystic." Others...
. Cincinnati Swedenborgians were intelligent, cultured, and influential people who loved good literature, music, painting, the theater and other arts. Cincinnati church members included inventors Jacob, William & R. P. Resor, publisher Benjamin and sculptor Hiram Powers
Hiram Powers
Hiram Powers was an American neoclassical sculptor.-Biography:The son of a farmer, Powers was born in Woodstock, Vermont, on the July 29, 1805. In 1818 his father moved to Ohio, about six miles from Cincinnati, where the son attended school for about a year, staying meanwhile with his brother, a...
, clockmaker Luman Watson, artist Mary Menessier Beck, educators Alexander Kinmont, Frederic
Eckstein, and M. M. Carll, and theatrical agent Sol Smith.
Eastern United States
In the Cincinnati Swedenborgian church 18 year-old Eliza Lovell married James Summons, a steam boat captain. Their son James was her only child to survive into adulthood.Eliza Lovell Summons-Tibbetts was also a spiritualist. When the Spiritualism
Spiritualism
Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...
spread throughout the nation and the globe during the mid-19th century, her father Oliver Lovell became President of the spiritualist society in Cincinnati. Her sister Clara Lovell Smith's sealed letter was divined by spiritualist physician John Redmond, who discussed the family in one of his books. Eliza herself was considered an accomplished medium.
Eliza Lovell’s second husband, James Neal, was a commerce merchant who became a well-known healing medium. Noted Spiritualist lecturer Thomas Gales Forster and his family lived with James and Eliza Lovell Neal in Clifton, Ohio in 1860. The Neals moved to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
with her father and her son James Summons about 1861. James enlisted in New York State infantry at 17 under the name James B. Lovell. He completed his three year enlistment and was honorably discharged as the regimental postmaster.
Southern United States
After the United States Civil War Eliza Lovell married a third time, to merchantMerchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
Luther C. Tibbets
Luther C. Tibbets
Luther Calvin Tibbets was born in South Berwick, York County, Maine. He and his wife Eliza Tibbets grew the first Washington Navel orange in Riverside, California in 1871, and founded the California citrus industry.-History:...
. He was an abolitionist, like Riverside city founders John Wesley North and James Porter Greves. Judge John Wesley North, while a staunch temperance-minded abolitionist in Tennessee was ostracized after he talked a crowd out of lynching a black man. Dr. Greves worked at Beaumont, South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
, the 'colony of freedmen' in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
until his health failed. The Tibbetses moved into the South in Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
with dreams of building a more racially tolerant society there and were driven out by unwelcoming locals. In 1867 they moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Fredericksburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia located south of Washington, D.C., and north of Richmond. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 24,286...
, and opened a local store. Luther campaigned for office as a Radical Republican
Radical Republican
The Radical Republicans were a loose faction of American politicians within the Republican Party from about 1854 until the end of Reconstruction in 1877...
and attempted to create an integrated community outside Fredericksburg. When they were driven from Frederickburg, the mother of a young African-American girl convinced them to take her child with them.
In Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Eliza and Luther Tibbets worked with Josephine S. Griffings
Josephine Sophia White Griffing
Josephine Sophia White Griffing was an American reformer who campaigned against slavery and for women's rights. She was born in Hebron, Connecticut on December 18, 1814 but later settled in Litchfield, Ohio. There she worked for the Western Anti-Slavery Society and Ohio Woman's Rights Association...
, Congressman Benjamin F. Butler
Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician)
Benjamin Franklin Butler was an American lawyer and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States House of Representatives and later served as the 33rd Governor of Massachusetts....
and other progressives on universal suffrage
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
, freedmen’s rights and other social issues. 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. For a brief time in 1870s citizens of the District of Columbia were enfranchised. DC woman suffrage activists argued that they were “citizens” and therefore enfranchised under that law. In 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
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
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, author E. D. E. N. Southworth
E. D. E. N. Southworth
Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth was an American writer of more than 60 novels in the latter part of the 19th century. She was probably the most widely read author of that era.-Life and career:...
, and founder of the Freedman's Bureau, Josephine S. Griffing. At the election, they attempted to vote, but were again refused. Their test cases, Spencer v. Board of Registration, and Webster v. Judges of Election were heard in the Supreme court of the District of Columbia. Women throughout the United States, including Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
and Virginia Minor
Virginia Minor
Virginia Louisa Minor was an American women's suffrage activist. She is best remembered as the plaintiff in Minor v...
demonstrated in this way, testing the law with civil disobedience. In the Minor v. Happersett
Minor v. Happersett
Minor v. Happersett, , was a United States Supreme Court case appealed from the Supreme Court of Missouri concerning the Missouri law which ordained "Every male citizen of the United States shall be entitled to vote."...
decision of 1875, however, the Court formally dissociated citizenship from voting rights.
California
Eliza Lovell Tibbets was a member of group of spiritualists and free thinkers" among Riverside pioneers in the 1870s. Tibbets accomplished much in her years in Riverside and Southern California, including introducing the navel orange to dominate agricultural citrusCitrus
Citrus is a common term and genus of flowering plants in the rue family, Rutaceae. Citrus is believed to have originated in the part of Southeast Asia bordered by Northeastern India, Myanmar and the Yunnan province of China...
orchard
Orchard
An orchard is an intentional planting of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit or nut-producing trees which are grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of large gardens, where they serve an aesthetic as well as a productive...
s, as described below.
Tibbets died while visiting the spiritualist colony in Summerland
Summerland, California
Summerland is a census-designated place in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. The population was 1,448 at the 2010 census, down from 1,545 at the 2000 census.The town includes a school and a Presbyterian Church...
, on the coast near Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
, in 1898. She was buried at Riverside's Evergreen Cemetery
Evergreen Cemetery (Riverside, California)
Evergreen Cemetery, or Evergreen Memorial Park is a cemetery in Riverside, California, United States. The first burial occurred in 1872, and the cemetery became the resting place of many historic figures of Riverside.-History:...
.
A statue of Tibbets produced by artist Guy Angelo Wilson is planned for the pedestrian mall beside the historic Mission Inn
Mission Inn
The Mission Inn, now known as The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, is a historic landmark hotel in downtown Riverside, California. Although a composite of many architectural styles, it is generally considered the largest Mission Revival Style building in the United States.-History:The property began as a...
in Riverside. The Tibbets memorial will be the first statue in Riverside to commemorate a woman.
The California Citrus State Historic Park
California Citrus State Historic Park
California Citrus State Historic Park is an open air museum in the state park system of California, USA, interpreting the historic cultural landscape of the citrus industry. The story of the citrus industry's role in the history and development of California is told in the visitor center...
preserves the era of her contribution to the citrus industry.
Eliza Tibbets and the Navel Orange
The Navel Orange history
The navel orange was not new when Tibbets introduced it to United States agriculture. A kind of navel was described and pictured by John Baptisti Ferrarius in 1646. Early Brazilian publications often referred to the Navel orange, or lavanja de ombigo. The Washington navel is sterile - truly seedless and utterly devoid of pollenPollen
Pollen is a fine to coarse powder containing the microgametophytes of seed plants, which produce the male gametes . Pollen grains have a hard coat that protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement from the stamens to the pistil of flowering plants or from the male cone to the...
with pistils deformed in a way that makes seed production from the pollen of other varieties impossible. Hence, the Washington navel orange is propagated by grafting
Grafting
Grafting is a horticultural technique whereby tissues from one plant are inserted into those of another so that the two sets of vascular tissues may join together. This vascular joining is called inosculation...
a bud from an existing tree onto separate (genetically distinct) rootstock
Rootstock
A rootstock is a plant, and sometimes just the stump, which already has an established, healthy root system, used for grafting a cutting or budding from another plant. The tree part being grafted onto the rootstock is usually called the scion...
. The Washington Navel orange is particularly prone to a type of mutation
Mutation
In molecular biology and genetics, mutations are changes in a genomic sequence: the DNA sequence of a cell's genome or the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. They can be defined as sudden and spontaneous changes in the cell. Mutations are caused by radiation, viruses, transposons and mutagenic...
in which one branch or “sport” differs genetically from the rest of the tree. It first appeared as a sport on a Selecta sweet orange tree in Bahia, Brazil. A desirable sport like this enables growers to avoid the complications of genetic segregation and recombination by spreading the species through asexual propagation. Although asexual propagation required a certain amount of effort and level of expertise, this sport was extensively propagated in the vicinity of Bahia. Nowadays many important fruit crops are propagated asexually, including oranges, grapes, avocados, bananas and apples. In fact, all commercial citrus trees are grafted onto rootstock selected for adaptation to the soil, resistance to disease, and influence on fruit quality.
The Navel Orange and the citrus industry
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. Extant citrus was mostly seedling trees grown from seeds obtained locally or from the Spanish missionsSpanish missions in California
The Spanish missions in California comprise a series of religious and military outposts established by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order between 1769 and 1823 to spread the Christian faith among the local Native Americans. The missions represented the first major effort by Europeans to...
. Growers experimented, but there was a lack of standardization in quality.
Meanwhile, in his greenhouses on the National Mall
National Mall
The National Mall is an open-area national park in downtown Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. The National Mall is a unit of the National Park Service , and is administered by the National Mall and Memorial Parks unit...
, Saunders experimented with imported plants for possible incorporation into American agriculture. 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.
In 1869 the Commissioner of agriculture, brought him a letter about a fabulous local orange from a woman in Bahia, Brazil. 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. He had prepared a supply of young orange stocks into which he inserted buds from the new trees. "That lady called here and was anxious to get some of these plants for her place, and I sent two of them by mail". When the orange trees were ready, Saunders mailed the first two out to Eliza Tibbets in Riverside, California
Riverside, California
Riverside is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, and the county seat of the eponymous county. Named for its location beside the Santa Ana River, it is the largest city in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area of Southern California, 4th largest inland California...
.
Groves in California and beyond
Tibbets’ success with the navel orange had led to a rapid increase in citrus planting, and the citrus planted was predominantly the Washington navel orange. The commercial success of these early orchards soon led to a widespread interest in this variety, so that by 1900 it was the most extensively grown citrus fruit in California.After that hundreds of Bahia orange trees were sent to Florida, but none flourished. Eliza Tibbets planted the two trees in her garden in 1873. 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
Canal
Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...
water. Agriculture officials attribute the success of the two trees that did flourish to Eliza Tibbets’ care.
The first fruits borne by these trees were produced in the season of 1875-76. 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. Tibbets’ orange was also ideally suited to Riverside’s semiarid weather, and its thick skin enabled it to be packed and shipped. The contrast between this new fruit and that of seedling trees was so striking that most new grove plantings were of Washington navel oranges. Tibbets sold budwood from her trees to local nurserymen, which led to extensive plantings of nursery trees cloned from hers. 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.
Tibbets’ orange allowed agriculture in California to survive transition from wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
. 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. Sometime about 1880 many agriculturalists in the central valley and Southern California began to convert to fruit. Soil and climate were obviously conducive to such a conversion. After the turn of the 20th century wheat exports began a rapid decline prompted by intense Canadian and Russian competition and declining grain yields due to soil depletion. 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.
Legacy of introduction
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 California's economy. By 1917 WNO culture was a $30 million per year industry in California. By 1933 the WNO industry in CA had grown to an industry with an annual income of $67 million. 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.,The success of Eliza Tibbets’s orange inspired irrigation
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
projects which converted more desert to orange groves. The size, scale, and ingenuity of the irrigation structures in Riverside and surrounding area are considered one of the agricultural marvels of the age. By 1893 Riverside was the wealthiest city per capita in the United States. Money poured into California. Tibbets’ orange led to an estimated $100 million of direct and indirect investment in citrus industry over the next 25 years. 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. In 1886 alone new citrus towns were laid out in
Rialto, Fontana, Bloomington, Redlands, Terracina, Mound City (Loma Linda), and South Riverside, (Corona). Irrigated communities like Etiwanda, Redlands, Ontario and many others were launched.
The rapidly expanding citrus industry also stimulated the capital market for real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
. As the industry grew, land which had been regarded as worthless dramatically increased value. Not only did orange culture feed the land boom of the 1880s in Southern California; it allowed Riverside to survive when the land boom collapsed in 1888. (See also: Panic of 1893
Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893. Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures...
.) 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. Tibbets’
introduction of the Washington navel orange was largely responsible for the fruit packing house
Packing house
A packing house is a facility where fruit is received and processed prior to distribution to market.Bulk fruit is delivered to the plant via trucks or wagons, where it is dumped into receiving bins and sorted for quality and size...
s, inventions in boxing machines, fruit wraps and the iced railroad car.
By the mid 1880s five packing houses sprang up in Riverside. 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.
The study and efforts of pioneers in the development of the California citrus industry led to the invention of fumigation
Fumigation
Fumigation is a method of pest control that completely fills an area with gaseous pesticides—or fumigants—to suffocate or poison the pests within. It is utilized for control of pests in buildings , soil, grain, and produce, and is also used during processing of goods to be imported or...
, of orchard heaters, and of many other methods of culture. 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. 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 Corp.
FMC Corp.
FMC Corporation is a chemical manufacturing company headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. FMC employs over 4,800 people world wide, and had gross revenues of US$3.115 billion in 2008.-The Bean Spray Pump Company:...
). The Santa Fe Railroad opened a direct to Riverside in 1886 allowing direct shipment to the east. Eight years later the first refrigerated rail cars
Refrigerator car
A refrigerator car is a refrigerated boxcar , a piece of railroad rolling stock designed to carry perishable freight at specific temperatures. Refrigerator cars differ from simple insulated boxcars and ventilated boxcars , neither of which are fitted with cooling apparatus...
shipped oranges from Riverside to the east on the Santa Fe Railroad.
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. California Fruit Growers Exchange, a cooperative marketing association made up of local growers was founded in 1893; it is now known as Sunkist Growers, Incorporated
Sunkist Growers, Incorporated
Sunkist Growers, Incorporated is a citrus grower's non-stock membership cooperative composed of 6,000 members from California and Arizona. It is headquartered in the Sherman Oaks district of Los Angeles.-History:...
.
Scientific approach to improvements
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. 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.Growers, scientists, and workers transformed the natural and social landscape of California, turning it into a factory for the production of millions of oranges. Orange growers in California developed the commercialized agriculture that only spread to the rest of the country a generation later. In 1906, the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
established in Riverside its Citrus Experiment Station
University of California Citrus Experiment Station
The University of California Citrus Experiment Station is the founding unit of the University of California, Riverside campus in Riverside, California, United States. The station contributed greatly to the cultivation of the orange and the overall agriculture industry in California...
, the beginnings of the University of California, Riverside
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside, commonly known as UCR or UC Riverside, is a public research university and one of the ten general campuses of the University of California system. UCR is consistently ranked as one of the most ethnically and economically diverse universities in the United...
. Originally located on the slope of Mount Rubidoux, the station institutionalized 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. 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.
Conclusion
The progeny trees derived from this parent source tree continues to be the most popular navel grown in California. 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. Millions of trees were propagated from progeny of this mother tree, not only in California, but worldwide.Further reading
- Alamillo, Jose Manuel. 2000. "Bitter-sweet communities: Mexican workers and citrus growers on the California landscape, 1880--1941". Ph.D. diss., UC Irvine. In ProQuest Digital Dissertations [database on-line]; available from http://www.proquest.com/ (publication number AAT 9954170; accessed January 31, 2008).
- Gordon, Ann D., editor. Selected Papers of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Vol 2: Against an Aristocracy of Sex, 1866-1873.New Brunswick, N. J.; Rutgers, 2000.
- Livie, Kyle Mitchell "Wide open spaces: Rural communities and the making of metropolitan California, 1870--1940". Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2007. In ProQuest Digital Dissertations [database on-line]; available from http://www.proquest.com/ (publication number AAT 3280982; accessed January 31, 2008).
- McBane, Margo "The house that lemons built: Race, ethnicity, gender, citizenship and the creation of a citrus empire, 1893--1919". Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2001. In ProQuest Digital Dissertations [database on-line]; available from http://www.proquest.com/ (publication number AAT 3063947; accessed January 31, 2008).
- Ortlieb, Patricia and Peter Economy. Creating an Orange Utopia: Eliza Lovell Tibbets and the Birth of California's Citrus Industry (Swedenborg Foundation Press, 2011)
- Riddle, Albert Gallatin and Carrie Chapman Catt. Suffrage Conferred by the Fourteenth Amendment. (Washington, D.C.: Judd & Detweiler, 1871).
- Tibbetts; Luther C. Tibbetts, Founder of the Naval Orange Industry - "About twenty years after Eliza and Luther Tibbets had died, a daughter of Luther, who had grown up with her mother campaigned to establish Luther Tibbets as the introducer of the Washington Navel orange instead of Eliza."
External links
- "William Saunders", The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, (September 14, 1900), p. 6. - Remarks by Susan B. Anthony in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York.