"George H. Todd and the Ventura County Citrus Strike of 1941: Agribusiness, Marketing Cooperatives, and Class Divisions Among the Lemon Growers "

This paper analyzes how large growers remade and imposed class cohesion from above during a particular moment in the New Deal era. In doing so, it builds on current trends in business history which consider the heterogeneity of elite groups—especially how power imbalances within groups contribute to intraclass divisions. Those divisions are significant because it forces us to wrestle with the diversity of intraclass experiences. Similarly, this work pushes labor historians to consider solidarity amongst capitalists, not just workers. During times of great upheaval, large growers needed to create class cohesions to push back against farmworkers’ demands. While a commitment to whiteness, masculinity, agrarian mythology, and economic self-interest bound most growers together during ordinary times, large growers used additional means to ensure class discipline during times of chaos.
The actions of large farm owners, small growers, and agricultural cooperatives during the Ventura County Citrus Strike of 1941, provides a perfect window into the remaking of a grower class. Using government documents, periodicals, and business and union records, I probe the hierarchical structure of cooperative agriculture and its intraclass implications. This development is clearly illustrated in a confrontation between George H. Todd, a small white grower, and the Saticoy Lemon Association (SLA, a subsidiary of California Fruit Growers Exchange) that took place a month into the strike. When Todd decided to make a deal with the union representing farmworkers, the full force of the SLA came down on him. Large growers, working through the SLA, used institutional political power, legal contracts, and economic pressure to signal Todd out as a class traitor. Once other small growers saw the socioeconomic gauntlet that Todd went through, no one else dared follow in his tracks. The confrontation between Todd and the SLA demonstrates how the most powerful elites within a class can use their power to force others into line.