Open Lecture: "Breaking Good?: Eli Black and the Reformation of United Fruit Company"
- Date: 9 November 2023, 14:15–16:00
- Location: English Park, 16-0043
- Type: Lecture
- Lecturer: Matthew Garcia, Professor, Dartmouth College
- Organiser: Swedish Institute for North American Studies (SINAS) and Dept of Human Geography
- Contact person: Christin Mays
On November 9th at 14:15, Matthew Garcia, Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of History, Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, and Human Relations at Dartmouth College, will give a lecture on his new book "Eli and the Octopus: The CEO Who Tried to Reform One of the World's Most Notorious Corporations."
We are familiar with the sins of the United Fruit Company, a U.S. multinational corporation so controlling of its Latin American hosts that it earned the dubious nickname “the Octopus.” Its audacious acts of economic imperialism hastened its disappearance from corporate America today, but how exactly did it end? An immigrant and former rabbi, Eli Black, bought the company in 1970. Immediately he made it the centerpiece of a new conglomerate, United Brands, that settled labor disputes and cooperated with union leaders in Honduras and California to improve the lives of farm workers. In doing so, Black embraced an ethic of “social responsibility” that earned United Fruit the reputation as “the most socially conscious American company in the hemisphere” by 1972.
In his presentation, Matt Garcia will explore how Black went about rebuilding United Fruit and why we have not known about Black’s efforts until the publication of Garcia’s new book Eli and the Octopus. He will also examine how and why we must study the United States in a transnational context, including revising our use of “American” to apply to the Western Hemisphere.