Coal mining in Appalachia

Before the coal-mining era, people in rural Appalachian lived on subsistence farming, producing enough food for survival but not enough to sell for profit and living wage.

Settlement patterns in the Appalachian regions were originally constrained by the dominant topographic features of the areas such as stream, mountains and valleys. Primarily for transportation and agricultural purposes, communities settled along rivers and within valleys.

Appalachia had the largest percentage of self-sufficient farms in the United States from the early 1800s to the early 1900s, and as late as the 1930s Appalachia had the highest concentration of low--income farms.

Industrialization, via coal, the railroads and other industries, transformed the society and economy of Appalachia following the Civil War.

Immigrants played a big part in both the development of the industry and the ensuing labor struggles. Right off the boat from Europe, immigrants provided cheap labor for the coal bosses.

The industrialization period from the 1870s to the 1920s, basically from the Reconstruction era through World War I, saw the metropolitan areas of America send workers of all ethnic types into Appalachia.

Salt and iron were among the first industries in the era, and they contributed to the development of the coal industry: coal was used to fire the salt brines in the early nineteenth century and after the salt industry declined, coal mining took it place.

Approximately 152 million tons of coal were produced from 1,369 surface mines in Appalachia during 1985.

In 2009, West Virginia accounted for about 43 percent of the surface coal mining production in Appalachia.
Coal mining in Appalachia

Milk dairy in United States

Milk drinking was introduced in the 17th century in United States during early European colonization efforts. There was no indigenous dairy tradition, as Native American societies kept no large domesticated mammals.

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado transported cattle with him when he explored the American Southwest in 1540 and reportedly turned some loose in the Mississippi River Valley.

Spaniards brought cattle to Veracruz (Mexico) in 1525; English cattle reached Jamestown in 1611.

When the Massachusetts Bay Colony established a settlement around what would become Boston in 1630, 30 cattle accompanied with first colonist. Other stock was sent subsequently. Increased availability meant expanded usage. Milk was drunk, churned into butter and converted into cheese.

By 1650, dairy farming was so successful that the Massachusetts Bay Colony exported butter and cheese.

From colonial times the dairy remained women’s work, including butter churning and cheese pressing, well into the nineteenth century long after commercial sales flourished in the public markets of seaports and river towns.

Dairy products sold by farmers in the early period were limited mainly to whole milk, farm made butter, and farm-made cheese. Prior to 1859, these products were produced mainly on farms.

Milk was probably not a major beverage until the late nineteenth century, when urban demand and technological innovations made a commercial milk supply possible.

Technical advances in milk processing and distribution brought hand-separators, milking machines, cooling equipment, and storage tanks to commercial dairy farms, while refrigerated tank trucks and glass-lined railcars by the 1930s carried milk to processing plants and profitable metropolitan markets.

Factory cheese production was in an experimental stage shortly before 1850, and made considerable progress during the next two decades. Although some butter as made in early cheese plants, the first commercial creamery was not established until 1861.
Milk dairy in United States

History of grapefruit to United States

In the United States, named of grapefruit appeared in the official list of the American Pomological Society as early as 1897.

In 1683 Captain Shaddock, an officer in the British East India Company, gave seeds from the Malaysia grapefruit, which is the pomelo not the true grapefruit to William Jones, a planter from Mandeville, Jamaica. 

Later, the pomelo spread to other Caribbean islands. Sometime in the 18th country, the pomelo hybridized with the sweet orange, evidently without human intervention, to yield the grapefruit.

Griffith Hughes British cleric was the first person in 1750 to describe the new fruit as ‘forbidden fruit’. Later in 1789, Patrick Browne mentioned it under the name ‘forbidden fruit’ or ‘smaller shaddock’ form Jamaica. 

According to one account Odette Felipe, a Spanish aristocrat, introduced the grapefruit into Florida in 1809. The originally grapefruit planted in Florida were the seedy types such as the Duncan.

Duncan was the leading cultivar for many years in the Florida and Texas and was introduced into all the grapefruit growing areas of the world. It was not immediate success. Some Floridians grew the grapefruit as an ornamental.

By 1910, farmers were growing grapefruit in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and in California and Arizona.

Today the production of grapefruit in Florida is so heavy that the fresh fruit market cannot absorbed the crop and the bulk of the fruit, therefore has to be converted into canned juice.

The processing of grapefruit into segments and juices was initiated in the late 1920’s as a means of expanding market outlets for the rapid increase in United States production.
History of grapefruit to United States

History of raisins in United States

In the 18th century Spanish missionaries helped farmers in California grow grapes for wine and marketable Muscat for raisin in the 1850s. The sweet Muscat grape produces raisins with flavors that are ideal for meat or fish dishes, cereals, desserts or candies.

The first California raisins were produced in southern California during the 1850s using the Muscat of Alexandria variety. The industry soon moved north and was firmly established in the Fresno area by the 1870s.

Around 1876, a Scottish immigrant, William Thompson, grew a seedless grape variety, Lady deCoverly that was thin skinned, seedless, sweet and tasty.  The first and only survived publicly displayed became known as Thompson’s seedless grape.

Thousands of acres of this grape have been planted in California to produce raisins, wine and table grapes.
History of raisins in United States