The Woman Behind the Modern Day Juice Press

Madeline was the genius behind the fruit press. The Turner's Fruit-Press revolutionized the fruit press, changing the cold-press juicing industry completely! Born and raised in Oakland California, Madeline was determined to be great. The Turner’s Fruit-Press was the only way to efficiently get consumers what we now call cold-pressed juices. In the 1900s there was no such thing as “juice” in the way we know it today. Everything was manual. Her invention was born out of necessity. She was tired of manually juicing her citrus in the morning by hand thus her juice press design was born. The machine used an assembly line design cutting the fruit, pressing the fruit, and dispensing the juice.

Despite the social inequalities of the 1900s due to her race and gender, Madeline obtained a patient for her original design seen above in 1916. The press was referred to as “ingenious” and opened up new avenues of revenue for businesses and completely changed the consumption of juice. Although very little about her personal life was documented, in fact, the only pictures in relation to her are of her press design, Turner’s press transformed the juicing industry for good! So next time you raise a glass of machine-pressed juice, know a Black woman did that! Cheers to you Madeline.

Source: Blackpast