Los Angeles Flower Market Publishes "Sending Flowers to America" Book

The American Florists' Exchange dba Los Angeles Flower Market announces publication of a hardbound, 288-page book in color, portraying in stories and pictures the growth of the Southern California flower industry and the industry's impact on the nation. End Quote

Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA (1888PressRelease) January 15, 2009 - Sending Flowers to America: History of the Los Angeles Flower Market and the People Who Built an American Floral Industry features a chronological history of how Southern California evolved into a patchwork of flower farms and citrus groves, covering its changing landscape from 1850 to the present day. A Profiles section complements it with more than 60 stories based on interviews with descendents of the European immigrant families who formed the nucleus of the early Los Angeles flower market, who operated the flower farms, trucked their blooms nightly to the Los Angeles Flower Market, and sold and shipped flowers and supplies across the United States.

Complemented with more than 350 photos, Sending Flowers is unique in recording the contributions made by European immigrants and transplants from "the states" to California's agricultural economy. It showcases the role they played in supplying flowers to florists and consumers nationally during the years when flowers could only be supplied domestically.

Crucial to the book is the role played by the Los Angeles Flower Market, the “grand central” of the Southern California flower industry since its inception in the early 1900s.

“We are very pleased to present this archival quality record of the milestones in our history,” says Johnny Mellano, manager of the Los Angeles Flower Market and a flower grower whose family story is one of those featured in the book. “These stories have been passed down to us through generations. It’s time we record them for those who follow in our footsteps and those across America who trade with California farmers and wholesalers and the Los Angeles Flower Market.”

About the American Florists’ Exchange, Ltd./Los Angeles Flower Market
The Los Angeles Flower Market of the American Florists’ Exchange, at 754 Wall Street in the Los Angeles Flower and Fashion District, was incorporated in January, 1921. Primarily a wholesale venue bringing together floral wholesalers, flower growers, shippers, distributors, floral suppliers, floral designers, event planners and retail florists, the Market is open also to the public and is part of the Los Angeles Flower District, the largest wholesale flower district in the United States. For more information, visit www.laflowerdistrict.com. For details about the Flower Market History Book Project, visit www.flowermarkethistory.com.

About the Authors
The Sending Flowers to America book project was managed and the book co-authored by award-winning author, Orange County, CA-based Peggi Ridgway, editor of The Bloomin’ News, the newsmagazine of the Los Angeles Flower Market, and author of business books and articles. Jan Works, a Fullerton, California-based business writer, wrote most of the 66 profiles of growers, wholesalers and florists that appear in the book’s Profiles sections, while Ridgway wrote the book’s chronological history.

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