Library of congress photos lubec cannery

Contributed by Penobscot Marine Museum

Description

Sardine canneries lined Lubec’s wharves in the early 1900s.

Photo, Print, Drawing Adult packers in the Lawrence Canning Co., near Lubec, showing packing process.

Picryl description: Public domain image of child labor, exploitation, children workers, economic conditions, free to use, no copyright restrictions.

Photo, Print, Drawing Housing conditions at Clove [?] sardine factory, North Lubec, Me. They are much congested and run down.

Abstract: Photographs from the records of the National Child Labor Committee (U.S.) Physical description: 1 photographic print.

Download Image of Adult packers in the Lawrence Canning Co., near Lubec, showing packing process.

They operated day and night, employing hundreds of workers of all ages. Each cannery fabricated its own sardine cans until 1908, when the American Can Company opened and began manufacturing the cans.

In this photograph, children pose near the American Can Company plant built in Lubec village after its North Lubec factory burned.

The first mechanized "tin" can manufacturer in Lubec, it soon erected a much larger building, and those shown here became warehouses.

In a few decades the company was turning out 350 million cans a year.

Lubec's connection to the sea and its close proximity to the Canadian Maritimes have shaped its destiny – from trade and fishing in the early years.

Sardine production peaked in 1950 at 3,806,000 cases of 100 cans.

The can plant went out of business in 1972, and the last structures were moved in the early 1990s. The last sardine packer closed in the 1990s.

Lubec and Eastport canneries employed many children, attracting the attention of well-known documentary photographer