American Companies Abroad
United Fruit was one of the many American companies that found opportunities for investment in South America in the 1920s and that introduced tropical foods to the United States. The company used elaborate and informative color advertisements to sell its products. Bananas were sufficiently exotic that the ads explained to consumers how to tell when bananas were ripe and how to store them (“Never place them in the ice-box”). John W. Hartman Center/Duke University Special Collections Library.