Comparison of two prints of Sunshine Gatherers (USA 1921, George E. Stone)
Credit: Library of Congress. Photographs of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
Credit: Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film. Photographs of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
“The only initial hint that Sunshine Gatherers is an elaborate advertising pitch is the red shield shape enclosing the title. For viewers of 1921, deluged with magazine ads and grocery shelves sporting this shape and color, the association with the Del Monte brand of fruits and vegetables would have been more than subliminal.
From the 1880s on, colorful art labels on citrus crates shipped east had reinforced an association of California with sunshine, beauty, and health. This abundant “fruited plains” imagery of the West drew from a pastoral myth older than the Wild West of itinerant gunmen and miners. Sunshine Gatherers gives us a California history that opens in peaceful conquest with the arrival in the 1760s of Father Junípero Serra “from Spain’s romantic shores.” Mission revival romanticism was at a height in the early twentieth century, and the adobe remains of Serra’s string of Franciscan missions are frequent backdrops in the first California films. In Sunshine Gatherers the missionaries teach Indians the “first principles of horticulture.”
National Film Preservation Foundation, see website with the video of the Sunshine Gatherers.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film. Photograph of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film. Photograph of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film. Photograph of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
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ShowHide details
Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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ShowHide details
Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film. Photograph of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
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ShowHide details
Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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ShowHide details
Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film. Photograph of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
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ShowHide details
Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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ShowHide details
Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film. Photograph of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
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ShowHide details
Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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ShowHide details
Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film. Photograph of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
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ShowHide details
Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film. Photograph of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film. Photograph of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Library of Congress. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger.
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Sunshine Gatherers (US 1921, George E. Stone). Credit: Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film. Photograph of the nitrate print by Barbara Flueckiger.