"...When the barrels come back, take that bung, take that bung out. What it did, when you pounded on that top of that barrel, it made that stave do this—it worked the bung out. Oh, wouldn’t that smell nice, that clove mustard! Sometimes them barrels [were] sitting out in the sun, and they built up pressure in there, and that would come out and go right through the ceiling. 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
Diana Young Prospect Harbor, ME
"...The Stinson bus came and picked up the ladies at various locations, and they came in those days with a fresh product that they stayed and packed and produced until the whistle blew that they were done. There was no minimum hours of working in those days, you earned your living by a piecework salary and the more that one did, the more pay one got. But there was a family … [Read more...]
Charles Stinson Prospect Harbor, ME
Years ago they cooked the fish differently. They steamed the fish before they packed them, and they put them on what they call these long flakes. If fact, years ago, they’d bail them out of the boats, they had a big net, and they’d bail them out, dump them out, and they’d run them into the--with the water into the fish tanks, into what we used to call the tank room, and there’d … [Read more...]