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Biography of Samuel ZemurrayName: Samuel ZemurrayBirth Date: January 18, 1877 Death Date: November 30, 1961 Place of Birth: Kishinev, Russia Nationality: American Gender: Male Occupations: fruit-importer Samuel Zemurray Samuel Zemurray (1877-1961), a Russian-born American fruit importer, in a classic "rags to riches" career built the United Fruit Company into a powerful international corporation. The economic power of his banana companies dwarfed the Central American states where they operated and allowed him to play a major economic and political role there in the mid-20th century.Samuel Zemurray was born in Kishinev, Bessarabia, Russia, on January 18, 1877, to poor Jewish parents, David and Sarah (Blausman) Zmuri. In 1892 he emigrated to Selma, Alabama, and worked at several low-paying jobs that enabled him to help the rest of his family come to Alabama by the time he was 19. In 1895 he entered the banana business, buying carloads of "ripes" in Mobile and peddling them to small-town grocers along the railway. He expanded this trade to New Orleans, getting a contract from the United Fruit Company (UFCO) to sell to small dealers and peddlers bananas …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…serious decline by the mid-1950s. Recognizing this, and seriously ill from Parkinson's disease, Zemurray divested himself of all UFCO stock. He died in New Orleans on November 30, 1961. Associated Organizations Further Reading A detailed biographical article on Zemurray is Stephen Whitfield, "Strange Fruit: The Career of Samuel Zemurray," American Jewish History 73 (March 1984). Favorable accounts of his contribution to United Fruit are also found in Charles Wilson, Empire in Green and Gold (1947); Stacy May and Galo Plaza, The United Fruit Company in Latin America (1958); and Thomas McCann, An American Company, the Tragedy of United Fruit (1976). More critical is Charles Kepner, Jr. and Jay Soothill, The Banana Empire (1935). Useful for his descriptions of Zemurray's relationships with others in the industry is Thomas Karnes, Tropical Enterprise, The Standard Fruit and Steamship Company in Latin America (1978). Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit (1982) provides detail on Zemurray and the 1954 overthrow of the Guatemalan government. |