Marcelo
Bucheli and Ian Read began the society seven years ago. At that
time, Wikipedia was in its infancy and there were few good sources of
information on the web about the United Fruit Company. But there
were many people in the United States, the Caribbean, and Central
America who had worked for the company, taken a trip on one of its
"banana boats," or had used one of its ships during the Second World
War. The need for more information, easily available through the
internet was, and is still, great.
Marcelo and Ian both
researched the fruit company while working toward
graduate degrees at Stanford University and the University of
Chicago. This was a busy time for both of us and we worked on the
society when we could. Marcelo deserves the most credit for all
of his work on the biographies and timeline, and for going through the
paperwork to get the society up and running. Marcelo graduated
from Stanford University with a Ph.D. in history in 2002. Ian
followed with the same degree four years later. Marcelo moved
between San Francisco and Cambridge, MA, and then finally to his
current position as Assistant Professor the University of Illionois at
Urbana-Champaign. Ian moved north to the Seattle area before
returning to California to begin a position as Assistant Professor at
Soka University of America in Orange County. Between the stresses
of job searches, new projects, article writing, book contracts, and
work toward tenure review, we have often done less work on the society
than we might have hoped.
Nevertheless, we are proud
that the site continues to be useful to the
thousands of visitors that it has received. We still believe in
its fundamental purpose: to disseminate information about the
actions of a powerful fruit company and the many people who made the
production, marketing, and distribution of billions of bananas and
other products possible. The company has a "lively" history, to
say the least. To many, it was a bastion of imperialism, a
perpetuator of human rights abuses, and the catalyst for "banana
republics." For others, it was the means for a romantic tropical
cruise, a source of navy ships that helped America's victory in WWII,
or a life of dedication to a Boston-based company that was immersed in
Latin American politics and culture. The company and the general
topic of U.S. capitalism in Latin America are historically rich and we
expect that people will continue to debate the meaning of these things
for many generations to come. For this reason, we remain
dedicated to improving this site when we get a chance. We are
open to new society members as long as you believe you can make a
strong and long-lasting contribution.
©
United Fruit Historical Society, 2001-2009 |
