ST. MICHAELS, MD—Generations of African Americans have worked hard in the Chesapeake Bay seafood industry. On the water, they harvested crabs, oysters, and fish. And on the land, they were indispensable in the picking and packing of the meat that was shipped throughout the United States and abroad. But most scholars and historians have ignored blacks' contributions to the business.
To address this oversight, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is set to launch a 15-month-long research project to collect personal recollections of blacks who worked in the commercial seafood industry.
"The history of the Chesapeake Bay has been well documented, but the role of African Americans in the maritime history of the bay has not," said Melissa McLoud, a museum vice president and director of the museum's Breene M. Kerr Center for Chesapeake Studies. "Many people associate African-American labor with agriculture. The maritime industries provided jobs for African-Americans for more than two centuries and blacks played a major role in the economic history of the bay.”
To start the project, the museum hired Harold Anderson, a graduate of St. John's College in Annapolis and a doctoral student in ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland College Park. He also studied at Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand. Anderson is the author of several articles about African Americans of the tidewater country, including "Black Men, Blue Water: African Americans on the Chesapeake" and "Slavery, Freedom and the Chesapeake." He most recently worked as a researcher with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in Virginia's coastal communities.
Anderson will focus his research on two Talbot County villages, St. Michaels and Bellevue, where two of the most important African American-owned seafood packing businesses were located. Colbourne and Jewett, for example, was one of Maryland's largest black-owned oyster packing houses in the first half of the 20th century. It was located on Navy Point in St. Michaels, the site of the maritime museum.
Anderson will collect oral history interviews and is seeking individuals who worked in the seafood business or who have recollections of stories passed on to them by relatives. "An important aspect of the project will be the input and participation by those in the community," he said. "We hope not only to interview people, but also to involve them in collecting data and to give the communities a say in determining what kind of results we will get from this research."
Anderson said people with experiences or information about blacks in the seafood industry can contact him at the museum at 410-745-2916, ext. 247.
The study is funded in part through a $47,000 grant from the Maryland Historic Trust.
The Breene M. Kerr Center for Chesapeake Studies is a unique education and resource center for the study and interpretation of the heritage of one of America’s most important maritime regions—the Chesapeake Bay. The center conducts and promotes regional humanities research, education, and outreach with a special emphasis on the interrelationships of culture and nature in the Chesapeake region.
Posted: 11-27-2002
