California orange crate greeting card, 1954

About this postcard

A wooden crate heaped with ripe oranges and sprigs of white orange blossoms sits against a flat teal background, with a few loose oranges and blossoms scattered on the ground before it. The crate front carries the playful line "THE BOX of ORANGES I Promised YOU from CALIFORNIA," and the printed caption reads "GREETINGS FROM CALIFORNIA." A short blurb boasts that the state's orange industry produced forty-six million boxes the previous year and calls the seedless Navel orange a California native prized for its flavor. The sender's note wishes the fruit could be real and mentions seeing trees full of oranges, a familiar report from Southern California's citrus country in the 1950s. North Hollywood, a growing community in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, sat near groves that were steadily giving way to postwar housing.