Henry Gabriel Ginaca (May 19, 1876 – October 19, 1918) was an American engineer who invented, at the direction of

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

pineapple The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...

magnate

James Dole James Drummond Dole (September 27, 1877 – May 20, 1958), also known as the "Pineapple King", was an American industrialist who developed the pineapple industry in Hawaii. He established the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (HAPCO) which was later r ...

, a machine that could peel and core pineapples automatically called the Ginaca machine.

Biography

Ginaca was born on May 19, 1876 in either

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

. His first job was at the San Francisco

Union Iron Works Union Iron Works, located in San Francisco, California, on the southeast waterfront, was a central business within the large industrial zone of Potrero Point, for four decades at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries ...

. He was later hired by the

Honolulu Iron Works Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

. In 1911 he began working for James Dole at the Hawaiian Pineapple Company. After inventing the "Ginaca Machine", Ginaca and his brothers returned to California in 1914. He died on October 19, 1918, in

Hornitos, California Hornitos (Spanish for "Little ovens") is a census-designated place in Mariposa County, California, United States. It is located on Burns Creek by road south of Coulterville, at an elevation of . The population was 38 at the 2020 census, down fro ...

during the

Spanish flu epidemic The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

The "Ginaca Machine"

Ginaca was hired by James Dole in 1911 to build a machine that could make

canning Canning is a method of food preservation in which food is processed and sealed in an airtight container (jars like Mason jars, and steel and tin cans). Canning provides a shelf life that typically ranges from one to five years, although u ...

pineapples more efficient. By 1913, Ginaca built a machine that removed the pineapple skin, then cored and sliced the fruit so that it would fit neatly in the can. Cannery workers would then inspect the sliced pineapple to trim away any thing that wouldn't fit in a can. The machine exponentially increased the number of pineapples that could be cored in one minute from 15 pineapples to 35. A higher speed machine was later invented that could peel and core 100 pineapples per minute. This revolutionized the fruit canning industry by making pineapple Hawaii's second-largest crop, after

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ginaca, Henry G. 1876 births 1918 deaths 20th-century American inventors Engineers from Hawaii Deaths from the Spanish flu pandemic in California 20th-century American engineers