About this collection

The Hay’s Fruit Juice Company was founded in in the year 1900 and produced Hay’s Five Fruit, a fruit juice syrup used to make and flavor beverages and desserts. This album was created after September 1923, following the completion of additional construction to a recently purchased new factory at 55-71 York Street, in Portland, Maine.

This new location enabled the company to produce three to four thousand bottles of fruit juice syrup a day. The product was entirely produced and stored in the factory until shipping, with separate rooms for pressing fruit, mixing the syrup, filling bottles, and inventory storage.

The Hay’s Fruit Juice Company album (Accession 1989.239) contains photographs and advertisements. The photographs are primarily of the factory’s interior and have accompanying captions on the facing pages that describe the manufacturing process of Hay’s Five Fruit. There are two photographs of raspberry fields and workers. The advertisements and labels are for the company’s fruit juice syrup.

Image: Orange and lemon kitchen, ca. 1923. Click here to see the image in the collection.