FRUIT AND FRIDGES

In the late 1890s, the development of the banana industry revolutionized vacation travel to the Caribbean. The key innovation was refrigerated holds for freighters, which kept the cargo of fruit at 50 degrees, fresh for faraway markets. Vessels with air-conditioned cabins and public spaces could keep their passengers cool, too, greatly enhancing the appeal of “a vacation voyage” to the tropics. Round-trip “Banana Boat” excursions from Boston, New York, and New Orleans caught on quickly.

The United Fruit Company dominated the trade. Its sleek steamships routinized routes to Jamaica and Cuba, piled on the onboard amenities, and published large, colorful magazine advertisements to attract passengers. “U. Fruit” hyped its ships as the “Great White Fleet,” because of their gleaming hulls, painted to reflect the Caribbean sun and keep the bananas chilly and green.

Neither Jamaica nor Cuba proved to be great places to grow bananas, and the “fruiters” lost excursion traffic to rival steamship lines. While 20 steamship lines and 20 ferries offered transportation to Cuba in the 1920s, two companies competed with the Great White Fleet in regular service, quality of food and accommodations, and marketing. The Ward Line and Munson Line developed a duopoly in Cuba during the tourist boom of the Roaring Twenties, when Prohibition drove thirsty American visitors there in droves. Ward and Munson divided up the territory, with Ward specializing in Havana and Matanzas and Munson running coastal routes.