Fruit Boats, New Orleans

 

Bertha Evelyn Jaques

  1863 - 1941 (biography)

1902  

etching 

4 1/4 x 5 1/4" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

unnumbered 

pencil titled in lower left corner of the paper; Artist's initial monogram inscribed into the plate in lower left above the date 

no. 22, checklist of the 1910 Chicago Society of Etchers exhibition; Czestochowski 68 

cream vellin paper 

published 

Chicago Society of Etchers, blindstamp in lower left corner of the paper 

20771 

SOLD

New Orleans is synonymous with Creole cooking but it also has a long history with banana importation from Latin America, particularly Honduras. At the end of the 19th century there were at least two major fruit importers, the United Fruit Company and the Standard Fruit Company. Steamboats brought the bananas to New Orleans and smaller boats would transport the fruit to other ports upstream along the river. One result of the importation of fruit from Latin American was an influx of Honduran immigrants to Louisiana who came to work the docks or to have their children educated in Catholic schools.