They had tables. There were usually two to a table, one on each side and they had two belts. Like right here. You stand like this then you had two belts. One was the can belt and one was the fish belt. You pulled the fish out onto the table like this. Then you picked the cans off whatever you wanted them and cut them and put them in. Then you had a hole right here where the … [Read more...]
The Last Sardine Cannery
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Through the middle of the 20th century there were as many as 75 canneries up and down the coast of Maine, providing employment and an abundant food source forMaine and the nation. That included feeding American troops through World War I and World War II. At the sound of the factory whistle, cannery workers came and packed fish, staying on the job until an entire boatload of fish was processed. By the 1970's the canneries we declining, and the last sardine cannery in the U.S., at Prospect Harbor, ME closed in April of 2010. This page contains transcripts of conversations with cannery workers who worked in the industry
Willard and Peter Colson Prospect Harbor, ME
"...Well, the normal day was seven o’clock in the morning until nine at night. We had a noon break, and what we called a supper break at six o’clock, and then we worked ‘til nine. If we needed to get the fish upstairs before they spoiled, we would work extra hours, that would be ten o’clock or so. And then after a while I got to driving the bus. That meant that I picked up my … [Read more...]
Susan Knight Calder Whiting, ME
"...Oh yeah, we had a big--they had a big celebration. I’ll show you the pictures. We had a--down to the old town hall. It was up on the hill, where the old schoolhouse used to be. And they had a town hall there, and they made a nice stage in there, anyway. And then they decorated that. The women done good. It looked lovely, I didn’t see it before that night. See, there were … [Read more...]
Robert and Jeanne Peacock Eastport, ME.
"...So anyway, with our bandaged fingers, we would wait for the fish to come down a beltway and my sister and I were on the last table because we were new people to it, and the fish were quite slimy and itchy when they got to us and we never got off the minimum wage which was a dollar and a quarter back then, believe it or not, it was really low to think about, but no, it was … [Read more...]
Wayne Wilcox Eastport, ME.
"Oh, when I was a kid growing up, I’d see Burpee riding around town with his big black Cadillac, and he was smoking a cigar, Burpee Wilson. I can’t think of his real name, I know know, it might have been Burton. We always called him Burpee Wilson. But because of his generosity, you know--matter of fact if you look at my house today, you look at all the shingles on there. That’s … [Read more...]