Joseph, who was called “Young Peppino” by his family, sparked an interest in the fruit industry after growing up on his family’s small farm and learning the ways of his father who was a lemon packer.(3) Carmella “CeCe” DiGiorgio Brooks, Joseph’s great niece, recounted the story that lead a young Joseph to leave his seven other siblings and parents behind to make a name for himself in America:

“At the ripe age of 14, Joseph left Cefalu [Sicily] and sailed to [the] United States. Interestingly, ...according to some of the stories that we had read, he was scheduled to go into the seminary...to become a priest. And he found out somehow that some of his friends had gotten into a little scuffle, and he didn't like that. So he was about to go out and set that straight. ...He went out and broke up the fight. And evidently the story was that the seminary did not want him anymore. So that's when he decided he was going to...flee the country and go seek his fortune someplace else.”(4)

Joseph “armed only with a small consignment of his family's lemon crop,” found his way to New York and a job with a fruit importer making eight dollars a week.”(5) It didn’t take long before the ambitious Joseph was ready for a new enterprise. Upon his move from New York to Baltimore, he began his own venture in the banana business as “Baltimore was the chief port” of bananas at the time.(6) It was then that he acquired the $5,000 loan “on his good looks, [Joseph] said, and a handshake,” so he could purchase a boat and begin trading other fruits when lemons were no longer in season.(7) In order to establish good rapport with the Maryland bank, Joseph paid the loan off within five days.(8) “That established his credit, and [the bankers] said, okay, if this young kid can do this, then...we'll...take a chance on him and give him...our support,” CeCe said.(9)

Joseph’s responsibility with paying back the loan paid off well for himself as he next established the Monumental Trading Company and became the director of the Maryland national bank.(10) On to the next endeavor, he founded the Baltimore Fruit Exchange, which was the “cornerstone of the DiGiorgio auction business” in 1904.(11) Less than ten years later, he purchased the California-based shipping company, Earl Fruit Company, and in 1918, he secured land in both California and Florida to turn his fruit selling into fruit growing. 

However, the rapid success did not come without challenges. Joseph was losing money quickly in his battle with the banana industry giant, the United Fruit Company.(12) However, CeCe described Joseph as “persuasive,” as “he had a way of finagling things to work out to his benefit.”(13) It is this very compelling risk-taking that led him to make the “bold arrangement” to supply “Jamaican growers with Cuban and Mexican bananas so they could fulfill their commitments in the event of loss by hurricane” in exchange for banana plantations for international supply and shipping.(14) It wasn’t long before Joseph was importing bananas on 29 ships to the U.S., Canada and Europe.(15)

What started as Joseph’s eighteen square miles of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley in 1919 turned into 40,000 acres in 1937.(16) In between those years, DiGiorgio, California, was established, which today is still a community in Kern County categorized as “a populated place” or unincorporated.(17) Kern County is known for its hot, dry climate, but the desert land didn’t scare Joseph away from planting his crop in this location as long as he had the help from a water pump. Water wells were drilled with electric pumps into the scorched land and supplied hydration for his trees and vines.(18) “Fruit is nothing but water and labor and more labor and freight,” Joseph said.(19) Furthermore, Joseph’s fruit-packing plant became the largest in America as a railway line in Arvin, California was built to expand shipping facilities for fruit growers including the DiGiorgio Fruit Corporation.(20) 

Just as water abundantly flowed into the DiGiorgio Fruit Company’s arid farmland, a steady stream of success was pouring into Joseph’s business ventures. After creating the largest fruit-packing plant in the U.S. by 1929, Joseph’s passion was far from withering as he started investing further in his grapes. His foresight for the nearing end of the Prohibition in 1932 pushed him into the California winery business, which included beginning his own winery, Del Vista Winery, in Delano, California. In typical Joseph fashion, he drove past an Italian Swiss Colony in Sonoma County, California, stopped and decided to enter the business, which served him well, as his almost 40 percent ownership secured him more wealth after the National Distillers bought the Italian Swiss Colony in 1942.(21)

Despite the vast success, Joseph never forgot his humble beginnings and remained modest and generous. “The national and international importance of Mr. DiGiorgio was probably unimportant to most of the people who came to this area seeking work. To them DiGiorgio was a man who owned a farm that held a promise of jobs.”(22) Some one thousand to three thousand workers were employed by DiGiorgio Farms. “He wanted [his workers] to be happy because in turn, he knew that they would work that much harder for him in the long run too,” CeCe said.(23) Joseph’s kindness and lack of superiority over his workers shows in a story CeCe shared about Frank, Joseph’s limousine driver, who spent an afternoon with her family after Joseph had passed away because “[Joseph] took very good care of his employees, and they were dedicated to him,” CeCe said.(24)

The favorable work conditions at DiGiorgio Farms included bunk houses, on-site schools and medical care.(25) Furthermore, CeCe said that Joseph allowed the farm workers to grow their own vegetables and fruits and raise cattle and pigs along with providing breakfasts with “the best meat.”(26) However, although Joseph was known for providing fair wages and a positive work environment, a movement was on the brink of exploding: The United Farm Workers Union strikes.

In the Los Angeles Times August 15, 1937 Sunday paper’s magazine section, an iconic interview of Joseph titled “I Work; You Work; The Land Works,” Joseph said his laborers allegedly were against unionizing: 

“That’s why it’s tough on the organizers who come to whip the Di Giorgio hands into a union. The organizers feel they’d better get Joe in hand. Just a few weeks ago they made a visit. There were rumblings and grave talk.

‘Mr. Di Giorgio,’ these men said, ‘we’re going to unionize your farm.’ The little Sicilian rubbed a hand over his short cropped gray mustache.

‘You’re going to what?’ he demanded.

‘What do my men say? My men are free men. You aren’t going to do anything here they don’t want done!’

It was Mr. Di Giorgio, himself, who called his workers together. 

...he sent down the road. He met his laborers at his own side lawn. In shirt sleeves and mopping his bronzed brow with a big white handkerchief, he climbed up where all could see him.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘I work, you work, and the land works. Everybody and everything works around here. Nothing gets scared!’

‘These men from the city tell me you want a union. Do you? Do you want to pay out of your regular wages to fellows you don’t even know--men who sit around their offices and eat because you work in the hot sun.

‘If you do, you can. Joe Di Giorgio has no slaves. You get the highest wages paid in this valley. If you want to give them away, go ahead. They’re yours, aren’t they?’

‘About 1000 of you work here the year around. Sometimes, when the fruit is right, there are 2500 of you here. Always the Di Giorgio farms are growing. Your job is good as long as there’s work to do...and you do it.’

‘You know that one day the fruit is green, the next it’s ready, and the third and it’s rotting. We’re in the shipping business and it’s gotta move. How can you have a union?’

‘If you think you can, go ahead and try it. If this farm goes to hell your jobs do, too.’

There was whispered conversation on the grass.

‘All right,’ Mr. Di Giorgio continued. ‘Go ahead and take your vote.’

He was sitting in the house when one of the laborers entered.

‘Mr. Di Giorgio,’ he said, ‘we voted.’

‘That’s a good American way,’ Mr. Di Giorgio returned. ‘Do you give your men pay to those fellows in the city...or not?’

A smile flashed across a sunburned face.

‘The men say they won’t get nothin’ for it if they do.’

‘How many of ‘em said that?” said the fruit king.

‘There were 2360 who voted: only two wanted to join.’

‘Good,’ said Mr. Di Giorgio. ‘On the Di Giorgio farms we grow crop--and men!’”(27)

Although unionization was allegedly opposed in the early 1900s, by 1965 following the publishing of “I Work; You Work; The Land Works” and Joseph’s death, the movement had gained momentum and an international boycott of DiGiorgio products and the farm worker strike against the corporation ensued and significantly impacted the business. Robert DiGiorgio, Joseph’s nephew, described the boycott and strikes as the “straw that broke the camel’s back” in terms of deciding if the DiGiorgio Corporation should be sold.(28)

The corporation’s management following Joseph’s death believed their best solution to the conflict was “a secret-ballot election and commence negotiations with the winner of the election, with unresolved issues going to an arbitrator after 30 days. If the unions were to lose, then they would have to agree not to boycott or strike the corporation for one year.”(29) However, the management’s confidence in a vote against the union was faulty as the United Farm Workers won the election ending the five years of striking and boycotting.(30) Although they never crossed paths, both Chavez and DiGiorgio were cut from the same cloth as they were both relentless--Chavez relentless in furthering his cause in the Sixties and DiGiorgio relentless in protecting his empire up until his death.

On February 25, 1951, the New York Times published an article with the headline “Joseph DiGiorgio ‘Fruit King,’ 76, Dies”. Guiseppe “Joseph” DiGiorgio passed away after suffering a heart attack at his home in DiGiorgio, California.(31) Joseph and his wife Beatrice Mary Brackenridge DiGiorgio never had children so the business was handed down to Joseph’s nephews: Joseph Salvatore “J.S.” Di Giorgio,  Rosario Di Giorgio, Joseph Arturo “J.A.” DiGiorgio, Salvatore Armond DiGiorgio (CeCe’s father), Vincent Peter Di Giorgio (my great grandfather), Philip Paul Di Giorgio and Robert Joseph Di Giorgio. Although all seven men were involved in the business one way or another, J.S., J.A., Phillip and Robert DiGiorgio ultimately took charge with J.S. becoming president and his brothers Philip and J.A. assisting as vice presidents.(32) Robert took charge as president of the DiGiorgio Wine Company.(33)

Despite the challenges and eventual sale of the DiGiorgio Fruit Corporation, before Joseph’s death, he left an impact on a multitude of people of varying geographic locations and socioeconomic statuses both inside and outside of the corporate world. Joseph, who once was on the brink of bankruptcy himself, “helped some people get out of bankruptcy [by going] in and [buying] the company or [fronting] the money to help them get through their situation.”(34) His philanthropic service to others extends far beyond helping other businesses. After Italy’s involvement in World War II caused many casualties and left many children orphaned, Joseph wanted to establish a boy’s orphanage in his birthplace of Cefalu, Sicily. Prior to his death, Franco Nacci for the international publication Italia Mondo wrote the following about Joseph’s vision and mission to better his birthplace come into fruition after his death:

“In the year 1947, having decided to create something of a permanent nature, and also for the purpose of alleviating the local unemployment, he wrote to his cousin, Monsignor Giovanni Miceli, asking what was it possible for him to do. Monsignor Miceli, with his religious soul always sensitive to the tragedies of poor children, gave him the idea of an orphanage, which Giuseppe Di Giorgio accepted with enthusiasm and began immediately to translate it into action. First of all he donated the land on which the orphanage was to be created...as though he wanted to create an uninterrupted symbol of continuity between the past and the future, between the creation of man, originated from the mystery of genesis, and his disappearance toward the beatitude of the eternal repose. Together with the land, Giuseppe Di Giorgio gave his first financial help and the project was being fully developed, when in 1951, in the far away city of Di Giorgio, California, the man who, although immersed in a life of American business, never forgot the problems of his native land, closed his intense earthly life, exulting in the pride of a goal reached and in the comfort of a human and generous mission performed which opened to him the way to Heaven.”(35)

After Joseph’s death, plans for the orphanage continued in his honor as Nacci explained: “the new generation of the DiGiorgios...although all born in America and although no binding clause was contained in the will of the decedent for the continuation of the enterprise, decided immediately on completion of the Orphanage…”. Beatrice, Joseph’s widow, cut the inaugural ribbon at the grand opening of the “Orphanage of Little Artisans” on September 25, 1955.(36) Aside from the orphanage that is still operating today, Joseph financially supported many other organizations such as churches and schools as well.(37) The selflessness of Joseph and his unwillingness to ever lose sight of where he came from is best portrayed by Nacci: “In his fast ascent from a lonely immigrant to the king of the fruit world, and the head of a large and lovely family, Giuseppe Di Giorgio never forgot the Sicily...”.(38)

Following Joseph’s death, the nephews in charge of DiGiorgio Fruit Company expanded beyond fruit companies and began acquiring the following from the mid-50s to the late-80s: (39)

• Carando (deli meats)

• Serv-A-Portion (small portion packages)

• TreeSweet (juices)

• DG International (juices and portion packages in Europe)

• White Rose Foods (groceries in NY area)

• LAD Drug (pharmaceuticals in the LA basin)

• Guaranteed Products (aluminum extrusions)

• Klamath Lumber (sawmill)

• Las Plumas (precut house frames)

• DG Mouldings (prefinished mouldings)

• Biltbest Windows (wood windows)

• DG Development (land development in Northern California and Borrego Springs)

• Travel Accessories (automotive products)

• Sun Aire (regional airline)

Now known simply as the DiGiorgio Corporation, the company’s leadership started investing in land development as well.(40) “We exceeded $1 billion in 1979,” Robert DiGiorgio reported in 1983. “Our sales were over nine hundred million last year and the year before, and we'll exceed $1 billion again next year. Even though we are diminishing and disposing of certain less desirable entities of our business.”(41)

However, Christine Di Giorgio Timmerman, Di Giorgio Corporation’s treasurer during the 1980s and daughter of Di Giorgio Corporation CEO Robert Di Giorgio, said, “...after Joseph’s death in 1951 Di Giorgio Corporation went public on the New York Stock Exchange in the mid 1950s. But being a public company meant having predictable earnings—and farming is a very unpredictable business. Shareholders don’t like hearing that the crops were poor, profits are down, and no dividends are forthcoming!”(42) 

Aside from the backlash from the grape strike and “unpredictability” of agriculture, it was the “[diversification of] the “product line” and new federal laws that led to the selling and eventual downfall of this billion-dollar business.(43) “Federal law restricted public water usage to 360 acres. DiGiorgio’s Bakersfield ranch, which used both private wells and public water, was greatly in excess of this limit,” said Timmerman. “The government chose to enforce this rule and wanted the ranch broken up.”(44)

Part of the corporation’s diversification was selling DiGiorgio ranches to, in return, buy new enterprises outside the agriculture industry such as grocery, automotive, airline, pharmaceuticals and building materials.(45) Timmerman described how to corporation became “ripe for takeover attempts” as the leadership was no longer family and profits were average despite all the investments making it “under the radar to be broken up to ‘enhance shareholder value.’”(46) Not giving up so easily, the corporation’s leadership attempted to “sell off division to raise cash and reinvest,” but that wasn’t enough when businessman Arthur Goldberg made an offer to buy DiGiorgio Corporation that the now cash-strapped company couldn’t pass up.(47) Goldberg “had a successful trucking firm in the New York area …[and] planned to sell off the remaining divisions to realize cash.(48) 

Although the DiGiorgio Corporation was sold away from the family to Goldberg in 1990, today, Joseph’s legacy lives on through the DiGiorgio generations that came after him.(49) Although we have planted our roots from San Francisco to Baltimore, the extended DiGiorgio family comes together for reunions every five to ten years. Joseph had a way of making everyone feel heard and important.

"What I remember most about Uncle Joe was he really listened, which is probably why he was so successful,” Marietta said. “He really listened...if he asked me about something, it wasn't just courtesy.”(50)

Joseph’s fruit cart became a billion-dollar fruit empire; however, his devotion to his morals, his family and his birthplace--despite the fast rise to the top--was priceless. “He was very, very good to the core,” Marietta said.(51)

As I conducted my research and interviews for my thesis, I was primarily seeking information on Joseph’s business ventures. However, what I discovered was how deeply revered Joseph was by individuals who spent a great deal of time with him to those who simply crossed paths with him. One of the very few things you cannot choose in your life is family, and I often found myself overwhelmed by emotion and beaming with pride as I realized how fortunate I am to come from the blood of human beings with good hearts and great souls.

“[Joseph] was a presence. There is no doubt about it,” Marietta said while holding back tears. “He was a presence.”(52) Through us, the DiGiorgio family, his presence lives on.