Iñupiaq men in qayaqs, Noatak, Alaska, circa 1929. Edward S. Curtis Collection, Library of Congress Digital Collections.
Crossing the Chilkoot Pass, circa 1898. Courtesy Candy Waugaman and Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.
The Gold Rush boomtown of Nome on the Seward Peninsula, 1900. Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library.
By: J. Pennelope Goforth
One of the first salmon canneries to open in Alaska incited a riot before the ship had even offloaded a single tin can. The incident, involving locals and imported labor, was the first of many such conflicts in Alaska over the rights to the seemingly endless resource of salmon. The fracas epitomizes the classic Pacific Coast fisheries struggle of indigenous subsistence users and capitalized ‘outside interests’ boosted by technology.
Alaska historian Patricia Roppel references this incident in a recent piece titled Southeast History: Sitka’s first salmon cannery – 1878[i] as does Steve Henrikson in an earlier blog article, History in a Can.[ii] The original story is related by William Governeur Morris, Special Agent of the U.S. Treasury Department in his report on ‘the condition of the public service, resources, &c. of Alaska Territory.’[iii]
The narrative reads like a cautionary tale and indeed serves the underlying thesis of Morris’ report which was the lawlessness then rampant a decade after the cession in the absence of any civil authority, prevalent drunkenness, and the resulting violence. “The following narrative is given to show how completely the Indians are masters of the situation, and that when aroused by anger or any other disturbing element which renders them intractable, how ungovernable they become.”[iv] Yet the theme that plays out here remains a staple to this day in Alaska cannery operations: local labor interests versus Outside business development.
The success of canneries in Alaska begins in Sacramento with the great gold rush of 1849 in California. The brothers William, George, and John Hume, had a successful salmon fishing and salting operation on the Sacramento River feeding San Francisco gold miners in the 1850s. By 1864 they eagerly adopted the new technique of cooking salmon in tin cans. With expertise from tinsmith friend Andrew Hapgood who joined their company, the brothers established a busy cannery operation. However, they and other fish processing outfits in the area, were so successful that the salmon runs were depleting.
Seeking new sources the pioneering salmon canners, moved up the coast to the lower Columbia River in Oregon Territory several miles northeast of the busy port of Astoria. Along the northern bank they found flocks of plump eagles and wisely set up a new cannery operation there in 1866, later known as Eagle Cliff Cannery. It was the first of many successful canneries on the Columbia. From here they shipped their product to the East Coast and as far away as Australia.
Word coming down from the newly acquired territory of Alaska soon attracted their attention with stories of runs of 45 lb king salmon.[v] An Affairs in Alaska column in the Port Townsend Weekly Argus, entitled Bright Prospects asserts the activities of an unnamed company ‘with a capital of $100,000 mean business.’ The writer goes on to report that the schooner CALIFORNIA landed 120 tons of freight including ‘machinery for a steam sawmill and large canning establishment; also 50 tons of tin.’ Interesting is what he doesn’t mention: a crowd of Tlingits protesting the landing of some 18 Chinese workers. ‘Within the coming three months the CALIFORNIA will land at Clawock [sic] 200 tons of freight and all the men necessary to run the cannery business.’
Back at Klawock
Near the port of Sitka in Southeast Alaska, the local Tlingit Indians had a traditional ‘fish camp’ on a small spit of land off Prince of Wales Island. Here they came for the prolific salmon that formed their staple food for generations. Just across the water from the village on Fish Egg Island an enterprising American, George Hamilton, lured by the good press generated in the heady years of the late 1860s, set up a trading post called Hamilton’s Fishery. He caught, bought, salted and sold barrels of salmon.[vi]
Roppel shows us that Hamilton hired Haida and Klawock Natives to work the saltery along with other white men. The business trails of white entrepreneurs in the territory, especially in the relatively small group operating in Southeast Alaska, frequently crossed. Hamilton struck up an acquaintance with Charles Waldron who had a trading post at Tongass village near Ketchikan just south of him on Revillagagedo Island. In the early 1870s Waldron is involved in Hamilton’s now bustling trade. In 1873 Hamilton loads a sizeable cargo of ‘800 barrels of salt salmon, a hundred barrels of fish oil, and a few bundles of furs and skins’ with Waldron aboard the ill-fated GEORGE S. WRIGHT.[vii]
Hamilton manages to survive the resulting crisis from the loss of his business associate and his entire season output. But he sold his outfit a few years later to a surprising new business concern in San Francisco: Sisson, Wallace and Company.[viii] They created yet another firm, the North Pacific Trading and Packing Company, to turn the old saltery into a state of the art cannery, complete with a sawmill and tinworks.
Previously this firm provided personnel services for construction projects including canals and railroads. Namely, Chinese laborers.[ix] Presumably they branched out into the fisheries, also purchasing vessels to be sent north to Alaska to serve as canneries, complete with staffing. Such as the former Pacific Mail Line steamer JOHN L STEPHENS that was dispatched to Karluk to serve as a floating cannery.[x]
The CALIFORNIA however, was a humble merchant cargo carrier in the coastwise trade, out of Portland, Oregon Territory making the Victoria, British Columbia and Southeast Alaska ports run. She is most famous for having carried the somewhat disgraced Army Companies G & M, 4th Artillery, Capt. A. Morris, commanding, out of Alaskan waters the previous year when the Army was ordered out of the territory.[xi] Schooner rigged at 168 feet, she delivered mail and was owned by P.B. Cornwall.[xii] It is on the deck of the CALIFORNIA, that the crisis over labor erupts while the ship is en route to Klawock with the equipment destined for the new North Pacific Trading and Packing Company facility. In another twist of fate, the entire NPTP effort was lead by a man named Hunter who previously ran one of the Eagle Cliff Canneries.
Rumble at Sitka Dock
Special Agent Morris, who narrates the episode in his report, was in Sitka as part of a tour of duty of Alaska. Sent by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which was essentially governing the territory at the time ‘in regard to the condition of the public services, resources, &c., of the Alaska Territory.’[xiii] Morris accidentally stumbled into the event when he accepted an offer from the CALIFORNIA’s Captain Charles Thorne to hop aboard for a trip to Klawock since the official government transport, the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service WOLCOTT was in Wrangell at the time. He brings with him a Mr. J.W. Keen who can act as an interpreter since he spoke the Tlingit language as well as the common Pacific Northwest trade patois known as Chinook (Chinuk) Jargon. Once aboard, he discovers the vessel is loaded with supplies for the new cannery including ‘eighteen Chinamen, who were hired exclusively to manufacture the tin cans.’[xiv]
The presence of the Chinese laborers must have inflamed not only the Native inhabitants who were gathered on the wharf and beaches that blustery cold day of March 16th to observe the spectacle of the ship arrival but also the disgruntled white men of Sitka who were unemployed. In fact, Morris’ description of ‘heathen Chinee’ is more of a white epithet than a Tlingit, Haida or Tsimshian adjective.
Morris also mentions the presence of a local man called Sitka Jack who could speak Chinook. He doesn’t tell why, but apparently the chief, known as Annah Hoots, declared to the assembled people that the Chinamen should not be allowed to land. Morse and Hunter attempted to defuse the antipathy toward the Chinese by explaining that they were there only to make tin cans at the new cannery at Klawock and didn’t represent any threat to the local unemployed. Things were not going well. More people from the surrounding Native encampments began arriving in an agitated state and a frightened Hunter had second thoughts, ‘…[Hunter] decided not to attempt to establish his fishery, and at once abandoned the enterprise, stating he had positive instructions from his employers not to land a pound of material unless everything was quiet, and there was no prospective danger.”[xv] And, further, Hunter tells Morris that the owners believed the new cannery would have recourse to the protective services of a nearby revenue cutter stationed at Sitka.
This was a relevant concern as the local tribes were accustomed to asserting their rights and while they might back down in the face of guns, they felt they had a legitimate reason to protest any further incursions on their territory and resultant loss of resources. The shelling of the village of Kake by the USS SAGINAW in 1869 and other armed retributions by individuals and the government still stung.
At the height of the ruckus, Morris relates the scene of the negotiations:
“Mr. Hunter, Keen and myself mounted to the hurricane deck [of the CALIFORNIA]; Annah Hoots and Sitka Jack right under us on the dock, and the whole tribe scattered about howling and yelling like Satan. Under this state of affairs the wa-wa [talks] began.
“I relied very much on the good sense of Jack, who was very anxious to have the cannery there, and in truth, so were all the Indians; but the point of controversy was, that the Chinamen had been imported to catch the fish, and that the Indians were half-naked and hungry, deserved the employment by right, and they would fight before they would permit any such infringement upon their reserved rights. It was their country and John Chinaman should not come. A very strong argument, it must be admitted.
“Mr Hunter very frankly explained to the Indians such was not the case; it was entirely foreign to his own views as well as those who employed him/ that is was his intention to buy all his fish from the Indians; that the Chinamen were brought along to make tin cans, and when they had finished the cans they should be sent away. Furthermore, if the Indians would learn to make cans, no more Chinamen should be employed.
“Mr. Keen very adroitly impress upon those present the folly of their course, and I am satisfied it was owing a great deal to the tact and judgment displayed by him that we succeeded as well as we did. I had but little to say, only to remind them the ‘man-of-war’ was not far off, lying at anchor at Wrangel, and if they wanted a gunnery practice, they should be speedily entertained.”[xvi]
As the Tlingit discussed the words of explanation and veiled threats amongst themselves the tumult appeared to pass. Morris continues:
“In a very short time as many Indians as could be set profitably to work were hired by Mr. Hunter to discharge his material, the Chinamen landed in perfect security, walked up town, hired a cabin from one of the tribe, purchased wood and by night-fall were snugly domiciled, with half a dozen dusky klootchmen (squaws) squatted on the floor and enjoying their fish and rice. Thus ended what might have proved a very serious affair.”[xvii]
In retrospect, it was actually the beginning of the mega-billion salmon cannery industry in Alaska which nearly wiped out the salmon runs and certainly challenged the rights of the First Alaskans.
[i] Roppel, Patricia. Capital City Weekly, Southeast History: Sitka’s first salmon cannery – 1878. Juneau, Alaska Wednesday, March 13, 2013. http://www.capitalcityweekly.com/stories/031313/out_1110524989.shtml last accessed 071314. http://alaskancanneries.blogspot.com/ last accessed 071314.
[ii] Henrikson, Steve. History in a Can. alaskancanneries.blogspot.com. June 1, 2014.
[iii] Morris, William G. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. Senate. Ex. Doc. No. 59. 1879. Page 129.
[iv] Op. cit.
[v] Port Townsend Weekly Argus. Port Townsend, WA. Affairs in Alaska: Bright Prospects. March 22, 1878.
[vi] Roppel.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] Ramirez, Salvador A. The Inside Man: The Life and Times of Mark Hopkins. Tentacled Press. Carlsbad, CA. 2007. Clark Crocker, principal in Sisson, Wallace and Co. was the agent for Chinese laborers, whom he imported for $80 (payable by the worker) who then worked for $1 a day from which his food and lodging were deducted. Page 580.
[x] http://www.geocities.com/mppraetorius/com-jo.htm last accessed 071314. The wooden side-wheel steamer, brigantine rigged, cold hold 350-400 people at 275 feet overall with a 41 foot beam. She had three decks and sported a steam condenser for fresh water. All these attributes made her a good floating cannery.
[xi] Pierce, Richard A. Alaskan Shipping, 1867-1878 Arrivals and Departures at the Port of Sitka. Limestone Press. Kingston, ONT. 1972. Page 49.
[xii] Wright, E.W., ed. Lewis & Dryden’s Maritime History of the Pacific Northwest. Superior Publishing. Seattle, Wa. 1967. Page 159.
[xiii] Op. cit. Report, Cover Letter, by John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury.
[xiv] Op. cit. page 129.
[xv] Op. cit. page 129.
[xvi] Op. cit.. page 130.
[xvii] Op. cit. page 130.
(The following is taken from “Mrs. Jeanice Welsh Killed in Yakutat Earthquake,” Pacific Fisherman (August 1958): 47. The earthquake in which Jeanice Welsh perished also triggered a landslide and the subsequent giant wave at Lituya Bay. Thanks goes to James Mackovjac for sharing this.)
Mrs. Jeanice Welsh Killed in Yakutat Earthquake. Mrs. Jeanice Welsh Walton, who was generally known in the salmon industry as Jeanice Welsh, and as the only woman who ever owned and personally operated a salmon canning business, died in the disappearance of a portion of Khantaak Island in the Alaska earthquake of July 9.
With two friends, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Tibbles of the Civil Aeronautics Administration station at Yakutat, she had gone to the island on a picnic and to pick wild strawberries. In the earthquake the portion of the island on which they had been last seen was thrust high in the air, only to disappear utterly in the deep waters. The island was about a mile offshore in Yakutat Bay, where the Bellingham Canning Co., of which Mrs. Welsh was president, had a cannery. She was also president of the Icy Straits Salmon Co., which had a cannery at Hoonah.
Mrs. Welsh was 54, the daughter-in-law of the late R.A. Welsh, Puget Sound canneryman who founded the Bellingham Canning Co., and widow of his son, Robin A. Welsh. Following her husband’s death, Mrs. Welsh took active charge of the family’s salmon canning business and, with her three sons, Warren, William and Robert, operated and expanded it. She later married the late J.L. Walton.
She specialized in conducting her business in Alaska Native communities, and in cultivating the confidence, friendship and cooperation of the Indian people. In this she was markedly successful.
Men in the salmon business have her full respect and regard as a woman of high character, a competent salmon canner and businesswoman, and a resourceful competitor.
By: Steve Henrikson, Curator of Collections at the Alaska State Museum
(Note: This article was republished from the Alaska State Museum’s Bulletin 41 with the permission of the author.)
Though famous for our isolation and uniqueness, the scattering of Alaskan material culture around the globe shows the extent of our engagement in the world economy. Years ago I was in Manhattan, on the “museum crawl,” and took a few minutes to browse an antique mall in the Garment District. The bottom floor was reserved for the glitziest of furnishings and decorative arts, and there, amidst the Deco and the Louis XIV, I glimpsed something so incongruous I thought I must be hallucinating. In the middle of a fashionably lit kiosk of fine porcelain and crystal was a century-old Alaskan salmon tin. I couldn’t have been happier.
The label read “Red Brand Spring Salmon, Arctic Packing Company, Alaska,” and the can itself looked early. It was hand-soldered, with a small vent hole that was plugged with solder after the cooking process. The label appeared to be an 1890s chromolithograph, an expensive process by which master printers hand stippled designs on stone plates to produce complex designs with naturalistic shading in over a dozen colors—each color requiring its own stone plate. The Arctic Packing Company operated canneries at Larsen Bay, Olga Bay and Nushagak Bay in the 1880s and 90s. However, the latter site was in operation beginning in 1878. One of only three canneries that began operations that year, listed as Alaska’s first.
I later heard that when my procurement documents hit the street in Juneau, my recommendation to spend $70 on an old can—empty no less—met with surprise and consternation. Such unusual requests from the museum have long ago entered state procurement lore, and today generate little controversy.
Though the can was (happily) empty of its original contents, it was full of potential for the interpretation of Alaska history in the museum. When we consider objects for acquisition by the museum, we always think about the end use—can it become a primary source for future research, or something useful in educational programming, or in exhibitions? And what interpretive subjects are suggested by the object? Sometimes the lowliest object turns out to be most useful in making a variety of interpretive points.
Salmon cans are incredibly versatile artifacts that support the telling of many Alaskan stories. Early industry, industrial revolution, labor history, and racial strife; Alaska as America’s colony, and as part of the global food chain; environmental degradation; the history of advertising, marketing and branding; and even printing technology are all themes supported by salmon tins. The subject matter printed on the labels, such as “Seward Brand” (Seward’s role in the Alaska Purchase Treaty), and “Wigwam Brand” (depiction of Alaska Natives in advertising), may be subjects worthy of exploration in our museums.
The canning of salmon in Alaska was only possible due to advances in science and technology that allowed for processing on an industrial scale. Canning in crocks, glass, and tinned iron, was developed in Europe during the 18th century, primarily for military consumption. In New York, salmon packed in glass jars were among the first vacuum packed foods available in the United States. After the Civil War, with improvements in the production of tinned iron, and the invention of new canning equipment, canned food became increasingly available to civilians in the United States. In Alaska, the invention of canning line machinery and processes conveniently coincided with efforts to develop its vast fishery resources, early in the American period.
By the early 20th century, much of the canning process became mechanized, but tin can construction in Alaska remained a hand operation due in part to the cost of shipping: it was cheaper to ship the tin sheets to Alaska flat. The tin itself was expensive, and a large quantity was required. In 1882, for example, the tin plate used by Alaska canneries in 1892 amounted to 49,239 boxes—each 108 pounds, with each box containing 112 14×20 inch sheets, which made 448 cans. To ship the packed cans south, crates were constructed from lumber supplied by Alaskan mills. These early cannery contracts came about at a critical time for Alaska’s fledgling lumber industry.
Once the cut salmon pieces were inserted in the can, the top was soldered on, but a small vent hole was left open. The food was cooked in the cans, and the vent hole was soldered closed when the food was steaming, creating a vacuum. Between 1908 and 1910, the American can company invented the sanitary can, featuring pre-soldered can bodies that were flattened for shipping, and once in Alaska, they were reconstituted and fitted with crimped ends. This eventually brought an end to hand manufacturing of cans in Alaska.
Prior to crating, the full cans were varnished (to inhibit rust) and a colorful paper label glued around the circumference. Early on, salmon cans in northern California were painted red, and consumers became so accustomed to the color that they reportedly refused to purchase anything painted another color. Habits die hard, and later paper labels in Alaska usually had bright red backgrounds—which also helped conceal spots of rust bleeding through the paper.
The labels’ designs themselves chart the birth of modern marketing techniques and branding. Competition was fierce, and consumer impressions of quality and cleanliness where based in part on the outward appearance of the can. Companies spared no expense designing their labels with colorful brand names and interesting graphics to make them stand out when displayed on shelves behind the counter of old-fashioned general stores. Consumers were loyal to brands that experience showed met their expectations of quality and purity. Over time, some brands lasted decades and became valuable assets, surviving as the company changed ownership.
Salmon cans symbolize the development of Alaska and its participation in the world economy.
In 1883, Alaskan canneries shipped 36,000 cases of 48 one pound cans. Just eight years later, the annual pack had increased to 789,347 cases—a rate of growth that some at the time considered alarming. Special Agent Paul S. Luttrell, Special Agent for the Salmon Fisheries in Alaska in 1895, reported that “the salmon-packing industry… has attained the limit beyond which it is dangerous to pass; and that, if we would perpetuate the salmon industry and keep it up to its present grand proportions, measures of protection must be taken…. it should never be forgotten that there is a limit beyond which it is not safe to go, and that if we would reap an annual golden harvest we must also guard the source of supply, and see that nothing is done to either fish or stream that will change the natural order under which the fish have grown to such numbers and by which they may be perpetuated without abatement forever. Paradoxical though it may appear, it is nevertheless true, that none are more anxious to save and perpetuate the salmon than the canners themselves, and yet their methods are such as, if continued, will very soon destroy them.”
In 1936, production in Alaska had increased astronomically to eight million cases to meet the global demand (one salmon tin recently acquired by the Alaska State Museum, a “Meteor Brand” can from the early 1900s, was recently excavated from an old garbage dump in Chile).
In terms of significance, canned salmon played a key role in Alaska’s development; between 1880 and 1937, the value of canned salmon produced in Alaska exceeded the value of minerals extracted from Alaska during the same period. Luttrell contined: “Let it be borne in mind that all the canning factories in Alaska are owned by three or four corporations in San Francisco, who have millions invested in the salmon-canning industry, but who have no interest in the development of Alaska, and who, as a matter of fact, do not add one dollar to the wealth of the young Territory from which they take millions of dollars annually. These corporations are rivals in the salmon-canning business, and their rivalry is carried to such extremes betimes that bloodshed at any moment will not surprise those who know the real conditions existing there. Now, this bitter rivalry of great and rich corporations, if allowed to continue, will eventually destroy the salmon…”
The role of museums is not necessarily to celebrate history. Resource development remains a mainstay of life in Alaska and makes available to society many important and positive things. Yet we may not overlook the suffering and ruin that resulted. Such production levels were possible in Alaska, where civil government and resource regulation was virtually nonexistent. The harvest exploited a vast biomass that had evolved in place for thousands of years. That abundance, the lifeblood of the rainforest and of Alaska Native cultures, was the target of canning companies as they expanded up the Northwest Coast, moving northward as California, Oregon, and Washington were overfished. The vastness of Alaska’s runs, and its relatively high operating costs and isolation, spared it the decimation seen in areas south. The lessons of overharvest and colonization were learned late. Fish traps—the device that led to such rapid increase in productivity—were eventually outlawed, and Alaska’s constitution became unique with its mention of the sustained yield principal.
Too, we must not overlook the human cost of the industry—Alaskans overlooked poor and dangerous working conditions in order to have a chance to make a cash income, which enabled them to participate in the introduced economy where some cash was a necessity. Cultures clashed when cannery management played one group against the other to lower labor costs, or to circumvent strikes (a technique that one writer noted had been taught “by the more irresponsible European laborers”). In Klawock, Tlingit and Haida cannery workers fought each other for access to employment. In Sitka, clans staged an organized protest when Chinese workers were imported. Violence was averted when officials explained that the Chinese were there only to make cans, and if the Natives would learn to make them, the Chinese would be sent away. That explanation, and a threat of calling the “man-of-war” for “a little gunnery practice,” helped quell the dispute. Canneries heavily reliant on Native labor worked in cahoots with the government to ensure that strikes and ceremonial activities would not interfere with production.
Alaska cans may appear at any time for sale the internet auction sites, or through antique dealers, usually from outside Alaska, where the vast majority of the cans were originally sold. Many cans sell for under $75, and dozens are offered annually. Currently, a rare and early “Zenith Brand” can, packed by the Yakutat and Southern Railway Company of Yakutat, is offered for $1,500—the most I’ve even seen for an Alaskan can. It is from a small cannery, with an early type label, and in nearly perfect shape. Labels are more common still, and rare examples may sell for several hundred dollars. These are mostly leftovers that were never affixed to cans, found by the bundle in old canneries and printing plants.
Condition can be an issue, given that most of them spent at least part of their existence in the garbage. Luckily, some cans survive a half century or more in the trash in a remarkably good state of preservation. One can we collected had been found in the wall of a house in upstate New York, having been deposited there by lunching carpenters—it was in great shape, and was opened from the bottom, which is nice for display purposes. Early cans were generally opened with a knife, which often chewed up the metal and sometimes even part of the label.
Canneries, Canning Technology, History of Canned Salmon Industry:
Cobb, John N.
1917 Pacific Salmon Fisheries. Appendix II to the report of U.S. Commissioner of Fisheries for 1916. Bureau of Fisheries Document No. 839. Washington DC: Government Printing Office.
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ri4wAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA7&dq=John+n.+cobb&hl=en&ei=b1H-TZ2dNsnUiAKczqDoBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Friday, Chris
1999 “Competing Communities at Work:
Asian Americans, European Americans, and Native Alaskans in the Pacific Northwest, 1938-1947. Over the Edge: Remapping the American West. Edited by
Valerie J. Matsumoto and Blake Allmendinger. Berkeley: University of California Press.
http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft8g5008gq;brand=ucpress
Jordan, David Starr
1898 Reports on Seal and Salmon Fisheries by Officers of the Treasury Department, and Correspondence Between the State and Treasury Departments on the Bering Sea Question From January 1, 1895, to June 20, 1986, with Comments on that Portion Thereof Which Relates to Pelagic Sealing (four volumes). Washington DC: Government Printing Office.
http://books.google.com/books?id=R9cqAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=seal+and+salmon+fisheries&hl=en&ei=K9P7TfWzD6XOiAKIspyEBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Moser, Jefferson F.
1902 “Salmon Investigations of the Steamer Albatross in the Summer of 1901.” Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. XXI, 1901, 57th Cong. 1st sess., Ho. Doc. No. 706. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 374-376.
http://books.google.com/books?id=bvA_AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=jefferson+moser&hl=en&ei=qqr9TaurA4bViAKus6T-Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Label History:
The History of Fruit Crate Labels and Can Labels
http://www.thelabelman.com/history_label.php?osCsid=d6b39e31d618220d4e071d000d91d5b1
http://www.antiquetrader.com/article/can_labels_brought_art_to_the_aisles/
Label Collecting Tips (including identification of printing techniques and dating)
http://www.thelabelman.com/collect_label_tip.php?osCsid=b394b0fa66206fdc658adb876d43c0fb
Label Collecting:
http://acn.liveauctioneers.com/index.php/component/content/article/60-style-century-magazine/1121-salmon-labels-are-a-prize-catch-from-the-great-northwest-
Schmidt Label and Lithography Company (the printer of many salmon can labels):
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/schmidt.html
Finding Aid, Schmidt Lithography Company Papers, Bancroft Library:
http://cdn.calisphere.org/data/13030/j1/tf9t1nb4j1/files/tf9t1nb4j1.pdf
The Schmidt Lithography Company: Oral History Transcripts, 1967-69
http://www.archive.org/stream/schmidtlithographco01teisrich/schmidtlithographco01teisrich_djvu.txt
Alaska Packers Association
Alaska State Library:
http://www.eed.state.ak.us/temp_lam_pages/library/historical/collections01.cfm
Western Washington University:
http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv77299
Pacific American Fisheries
http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv45835
Southwestern Alaska Cannery Logbooks:
http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv99198
Cannery Workers and Farm Laborers Union Local 7 Records 1915-1985
http://www.lib.washington.edu/specialcoll/findaids/docs/papersrecords/CanneryWorkersandFarmLaborersUnionLocal7SeattleWash3927.xml
North Pacific Cannery National Historical Site Finding Aids
http://memorybc.ca/north-pacific-cannery-village-and-museum;isdiah
Boettcher, Graham C.
1997 Canned Culture: Pacific Salmon Fisheries and the Image of the American Indian. Unpublished Manuscript in the Alaska State Museum files.
Clark, Hyla M.
1977 The Tin Can: The Can as Collectible Art, Advertising Art & High Art. New York: New American Library
Dunbar, Kurt, and Chris Friday
1994 “Salmon, Seals, and Science: The Albatross and Conservation in Alaska, 1888-1914.” Journal of the West 33 (October 1994): 6-13.
Edwards, Jack
2006 How Old Is That Label: A Celebration of Pacific Northwest Salmon Labels & Dating Guide. Long Beach, Washington: Chinook Observer Publications.
Friday, Chris
1994 Organizing Asian American Labor: The Pacific Coast Canned-Salmon Industry, 1870-1942.
Freeburn, Laurence
1976 “The Silver Years of the Alaska Canned Salmon Industry.” Alaska Geographic3(4). Anchorge: Alaska Geographic Society.
Lorenz, Claudia, Kathryn McKay, et al
2002 Trademarks and Salmon Art: A Brand New Perspective. Vancouver BC: Gulf Of Georgia Cannery Society.
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| W.J. Erskine, Kodiak entrepreneur (Kodiak Historical Society, P-368-40) |
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| The halibut schooner Hunter shines bright amid Kodiak’s ash-covered landscape in the days following the eruption. (Kodiak Historical Society, P-357-28) |
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| All of Kodiak crowded on the Revenue Cutter Service’s Manning during the Katmai eruption (Kodiak Historical Society, P-89) |
