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Preserving History: Authentic Objects Across Eras
Vintage and Antique Gifts
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Size: 8.25 x 3.25 inches
Some labels sell fruit with a pretty face, and this is one of the loveliest. Against a warm red ground, a young woman in a white Grecian gown leans against a fluted marble column, a golden-green band in her hair, her hands lifted softly to her cheek and a gentle smile on her lips — the "Maid of Athens" herself. Beside her, in big bold white letters, is the brand, and below it the firm that shipped under it. It is a Maid of Athens Brand citrus label from the McBride Packing Company of Seville, Florida, and it is a small piece of 1930s glamour built to sell oranges. Everything described here comes straight from the label in the photographs; the history below is what can honestly be established about the packer and the place.
The label names its own maker plainly: "McBride Packing Company, Seville, Florida, Produce of U.S.A." And it tells you a little more, too. Set into the lower right is a blue oval emblem reading "Saint Johns River Fruit," ringed with palm-lined riverbanks — the packer's own badge, declaring exactly where this fruit was grown: along the St. Johns, the great river that runs north through the citrus country of northeast Florida. The McBride Packing Company was a citrus packer and shipper in Seville, a small town in the northern reaches of that citrus belt, and it dressed its oranges in this Grecian portrait to send them north to market.
There is an honest gap to acknowledge, and it is part of the charm. Like many of Florida's smaller packing houses, McBride left a thin written record; its story today is told mostly by the labels it printed rather than by history books. But the label itself is unusually generous with evidence. Tucked beside the "Saint Johns River Fruit" oval is a copyright line — "Copr. 1933 by W. H. McB" — the initials of William H. McBride, the man behind the firm, staking his claim to this very design in 1933. That single line makes the label a small piece of primary evidence: proof that a real Seville business existed, shipped St. Johns River citrus, and cared enough about its fruit to commission a portrait this fine and register it as its own.
Seville sits in Volusia County, in the belt of groves that once ran along the St. Johns in northeast Florida — one of the older citrus districts in the state, worked by packing houses that graded, wrapped and boxed fruit and sent it north by rail to markets that had never seen a Florida grove. A packer's brand was its signature in those distant markets, and Maid of Athens was McBride's — a name and a face designed to be remembered.
One more name hides in the corner. In tiny type at the lower right is the lithographer's credit, "Schmidt Litho. Co., S.F." — the Schmidt Lithograph Company of San Francisco, one of the great American label houses of the era. It is a small marvel of the trade that a Florida citrus packer's brand was drawn and printed clear across the country in California, but the West Coast houses dominated the produce-label business, and their skilled artists gave even a modest Seville firm a portrait with real painterly polish. The soft modeling of the face, the folds of the gown, the cool marble of the column — this is accomplished commercial art, and it is a large part of why labels like this are framed and collected today.
The design is a study in warm contrast. A single saturated red ground fills the sheet; at the left stands the Maid of Athens, a fair-haired young woman in a white sleeveless Grecian chiton with a golden-green fillet in her hair, leaning against a tall fluted classical column and resting her hands at her throat with a serene half-smile. To the right, "Maid of Athens" is stacked in bold white block capitals with "Brand" beneath; then the packer line, "McBride Packing Company, Seville, Florida"; and the blue "Saint Johns River Fruit" oval with its palm-and-river scene. It is a horizontal, landscape-format label — the proportion made for the end of a citrus box — and the whole thing has the poised, decorative glamour of early-1930s illustration.
The classical theme is doing real work. Calling the brand "Maid of Athens" and posing a serene young woman against a Greek column wrapped the fruit in associations of beauty, purity and antiquity — a promise, in a single picture, that what was inside the crate was as fine as it was fresh. Portrait or "pretty girl" labels form a distinct and much-loved category within crate-label collecting: a wholesome, appealing face drew the eye and won goodwill in a market where most crates looked alike. The Maid of Athens is a particularly graceful example of the type, her styling — the marcelled hair, the soft painterly face — placing her firmly in the early 1930s.
A quick word on why a label this old still looks so fresh: it was never used. Florida citrus travelled in nailed wooden crates that each wanted a pasted paper label, so packers ordered labels by the thousand and kept great stacks on hand. When pre-printed cardboard cartons took over — printing the brand straight onto the box — the paper labels became obsolete, and unused stock sat forgotten for years. This Maid of Athens label is one of those survivors: never pasted, its reverse blank but for a soft ghost of the front bleeding through, its color as warm as the day it left the press.
Read from the same photographs: this is a single sheet of original vintage lithographed paper, unused, with a blank reverse carrying only a faint mirror-image bleed-through of the front — exactly what an unused, never-pasted label should show. The printed face is warm and well preserved, the red ground rich, the portrait clear, the white lettering crisp. It shows the light, honest character of stored vintage paper and is offered exactly as pictured, with nothing added, retouched or concealed. As a flat paper label it frames cleanly and without bulk.
This is one of those happy cases where the label dates itself. The copyright line "Copr. 1933 by W. H. McB" is printed right on the face, so the design was registered in 1933 — the label cannot predate that year, and its early-1930s styling agrees completely. It is described, on the label's own evidence, as a 1933 Florida citrus label: a genuine survivor from the depths of the Depression, when a small Seville packer still commissioned art this fine to sell its fruit.
A label this graceful, and this specific to a real Florida town, belongs on a wall:
Maid of Athens will mean the most to a few people. The crate-label collector values a clean, packer-attributed Florida citrus label with a strong portrait and a printed copyright date. The lover of "pretty girl" and classical imagery reads the Grecian maid for the small piece of 1930s glamour she is. And the Floridian — anyone with a grove, a grandparent or a childhood along the St. Johns River citrus belt — finds a specific piece of home in the word "Seville." For any of them, this is a single original label, offered exactly as shown.
A citrus packer and shipper in Seville, Florida, in the St. Johns River citrus belt, named right on the label and identified by its "Saint Johns River Fruit" emblem. Detailed company history is scarce today; the design was copyrighted in 1933 by W. H. McBride, whose initials appear on the face.
It is the packer's own badge, telling buyers the fruit was grown along the St. Johns, the great river running through northeast Florida's citrus country.
An original vintage lithographed label. The bleed-through-only reverse and paper character indicate genuine unused new-old-stock; the Schmidt Litho imprint confirms the printer.
The printed copyright "Copr. 1933 by W. H. McB" dates the design to 1933; the styling agrees. It cannot predate that year.
Unused, with a clean blank back (bearing only a faint bleed-through) and a warm, well-preserved face. Offered exactly as pictured.
It is easy to walk past something this small, and that is exactly why it is worth stopping for. Here is one of the main surviving traces of a real Seville business — the McBride Packing Company, a St. Johns River citrus packer whose story history mostly forgot but whose Maid of Athens still smiles. She did her old job with pure grace: a Grecian beauty beside a marble column, drawn and printed clear across the country in San Francisco, registered by her maker in 1933 and preserved unused ever since. Frame her, gift her, or just prop her where the light lands. Either way you are keeping a warm, genuine piece of the real Florida citrus story — and giving a nearly-forgotten Seville packing house one more moment in the sun.
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