In 1898, the United States Department of Agriculture created a special department of men, called “Agriculture Explorers,” to travel the globe searching for new food crops to bring back for farmers to grow in the U.S. These men introduced exotic specimens like the mango, the avocado, and the date. In 1900, the USDA sent plant explorer, Walter Swingle, to Algeria to study the date. As Swingle took temperature readings and soil temperature, he realized that the conditions were very much like those in California’s hot, arid Coachella Valley, sometimes referred to as the American Sahara. In order to market this new fruit and promote the region, date growers in the Coachella Valley began capitalizing on the exotic imagery and fantasy many Americans associated with the Middle East. In the 1950s date shops dotted the highway, attracting tourists. There was Pyramid Date shop where you could purchase your dates in a pyramid. Sniff’s Exotic Date Garden set up a tent like those used by nomadic tribes of the Sahara. One of the most well-known date shops, which still exists today, is Shields Date Garden, established in 1924. Floyd Shields lured in customers with his lecture and slide show titled, “The Romance and Sex Life of the Date.”
This story was produced in collaboration with Lisa Morehouse.
140 -The Climate Underground with Al Gore and Alice Waters
139 - Waiting for Joe DiMaggio
138 - The Keepers - Archive Fever, with host Frances McDormand
137- The Keepers - Archiving the Underground, with Host Frances McDormand
136 - The Lou Reed Archive with Laurie Anderson
135 - Deep Fried Fuel - A Biodiesel Kitchen Vision - Celebrating Over the Road
133 - WHER - 1000 Beautiful Watts, The First All-Girl Radio Station in the Nation
133 - Theaster Gates — Keeping the South Side
132 - The Pancake Years
131 - Night of the Living Intern: First Stories from Kitchen Sisters Interns
130 - Lipstick Traces — Dreaming in Public
129 - Martin Scorsese — Try Anything
128 - First Day of School—1960, New Orleans
127 - Robert Krulwich—Talking Story, The First Third Coast
126 - Lawrence Weschler—Archivist of the Odd, the Marvelous, the Passionate and Slightly Askew
125 - The Passion of Chris Strachwitz—Arhoolie Records
124 - The Brothers Burns — A Conversation with Filmmakers Ken & Ric Burns
123- San Francisco—Stories from the Model City, Part Three
122 - Burning Man — Archiving the Ephemeral
121 - San Francisco—Stories from the Model City, Part Two
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Criminal
Ear Hustle
Song Exploder
The Truth
the memory palace