Hawaiʻi's Journey to Statehood | The Pineapple King | 2

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the early 1900s, an enterprising young American named James Dole introduced pineapples to a windy plateau in Central Oahu. He’d been warned that the crop was perishable and unprofitable and that his venture was sure to fail. But within a decade, his plantation – and the immigrant workers brought in to farm it – reshaped the landscape and economy of the Hawaiian Islands. Dole’s savvy marketing helped build the mystique that made Hawai’i a tourist destination. But his reign as Hawai’i’s “Pineapple King” would be cut short.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to American History Tellers add free on Amazon Music,
0:05.6	download the app today.
0:09.4	Imagine it's a cool afternoon in November 1901.
0:21.5	You're working on a farm in Oahu, a sun-baked plateau in central Oahu, northwest of Honolulu,
0:27.1	Hawaii.
0:28.1	Your foreman has asked you and three co-workers to clear a 10 acre parcel of wild grass and
0:32.6	guava bushes in order to plow.
0:35.5	You've been here a month, ever since losing your job at a sugar plantation on Maui.
0:40.3	Your new boss is a novice home stutter from Massachusetts.
0:43.6	He's already tried to grow watermelons, grapes, cashews, and who knows what else, but none
0:48.2	of those crops thrived.
0:50.0	Now he has a new idea, pineapples.
0:53.1	Once you plow these acres, you're supposed to plant 50,000 of them.
0:57.3	The boss's right-hand man, your foreman, hovers as you work.
1:01.0	Well, how much longer before we can start planting?
1:03.5	Well, that red soil over there is pretty thick, chief.
1:06.6	We'll probably have to till it twice to loosen it all up.
1:09.9	Two, three days just to turn the soil, at least another week to plant.
1:13.6	Well, do what you have to do.
1:15.7	Just get those plants in the ground as fast as you can.
1:18.6	Boss doesn't want them to dry out.
1:20.1	They cost him a pretty penny, and he or he's buying even more.
	...

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