Pics from 1911. Have you ever shucked an oyster?

[underpants]

Josie, six year old, Bertha, six years old, Sophie, 10 years old, all shuck regularly. Maggioni Canning Co. Location: Port Royal, South Carolina, Lewis Hine, Febraury 1911.

Subsequently, I learned that most children who worked at this place were Polish and Bohemian immigrants who lived most of the year in Baltimore, Maryland, and worked in southern fish canneries in the winter. I was unable to interest the Baltimore Sun in publishing the photo. So I made one final effort. looking again at the 1910 census for anyone named Josie or Josephine, Bertha and Sophie, and came up with Sophie Dudeck, born in Maryland in 1901, and living with a family that worked for an oyster cannery. I was virtually certain that she was the Sophie in the photo, so I searched for her descendants. It’s not easy searching for girls, since most of them marry and change their last names. So I searched for descendants of her male siblings.

https://morningsonmaplestreet.com/2015/07/20/oyster-shuckers-port-royal-south-carolina/




Hine: Oyster Shuckers, 1911. /Nyoung Boys And Girls Working Alongside Men And Women Shucking Oysters At The Dunbar Cannery Factory In Dunbar, Louisiana. Photograph By Lewis Hine, March 1911. was reproduced on Premium Heavy Stock Paper which captures all of the vivid colors and details of the original. The overall paper size is 18.00 x 24.00 inches and the image size is 18.00 x 24.00 inches. This print is ready for hanging or framing. Brand New and Rolled and ready for display or framing. Print Title: Hine: Oyster Shuckers, 1911. /Nyoung Boys And Girls Working Alongside Men And Women Shucking Oysters At The Dunbar Cannery Factory In Dunbar, Louisiana. Photograph By Lewis Hine, March 1911.. Paper Size: 18.00 x 24.00 inches. Product Type: Fine Art Print.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=2NM-0084-2DAX3

[tblue37]

1. Hine's book includes 2 photos of my Sicilian grandfather as a 13-year-old working in a

Pennsylvania coal mine:

[Blue_true]

4. Did your grandfather work in the mines all of his working life? nt

[tblue37]

5. No, just as a kid and very young man. nt

[Blue_true]

9. What type of work did he do later on?

I knew only one of my grandparents for a short part of my life, my maternal grandmother, I was 7 when she passed.

[tblue37]

10. Black lung killed him at age 71. nt

[underpants]

8. Ugh

A few years ago I found out there were coal mines just west of Richmond Va. No hills or mountains, they just dug down and then lowered the mules and carts down with pullies and then lifted them lifted them back up. Flat ground coal mining.

[Blue_true]

11. Are some of the shafts still around? nt

[underpants]

13. I doubt it.

It's all mall and neighborhoods now.

http://www.abandonedcountry.com/2013/03/11/the-richmond-coal-basin-part-1-dovers-little-pits-and-the-beginning-of-a-burning-legacy/

http://www.nbc12.com/story/11402675/mapping-abandoned-mines-in-the-richmond-area

[Blue_true]

15. Well, that would take care of the shafts. nt

[htuttle]

2. Shucking oysters is very hard

Typically chain-mail gloves are worn to protect the hands, too.

Most people nowadays wouldn't believe the arduousness of their grandparents (or great great grandparents, if you're of millennial age) lives.

[tblue37]

6. My maternal great grandmother was a corn husker. She died of tetanus caused by

an infected cut she got husking corn.

[underpants]

7. Tell me about it

My stepfather, who throws nickels around like manhole covers, discovered on a stop at Powhatan's crossing at low tide on the Colonial Parkway all this FREE FOOD. Oysters for the picking. I have no idea if it was illegal. He said if we got about 15 we could make oyster stew. On subsequent trips we almost filled up the trunk of his car. I and my brother became quite the experts at shucking.

He also got a great deal once by buying basically whole trees for firewood. I started chopping wood the day I came home from beachweek following high school graduation. On my holiday break after my freshman semester at college I was still chopping wood listening to the NFL championship on a radio in the snow.

It's all in the wrist.

[CDerekGo]

3. and the azzhat

And the Azzhat illegally occcupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would gladly LOVE to see this happen again

[unc70]

12. I started shucking around 8 or 9

Even with technique, you don't have the strength at that age to pop many of the shells. We also headed and hulled shrimp by that age. Growing up on a farm and very near the ocean meant there were a lot of hard tasks at hand. This was in the 1950s.

[Igel]

14. Yeah, but it's been a long, long time.

Lived a mile from the Chesapeake Bay. Father would pick up oysters for family use and we'd shuck them. Okay, mostly "they would shuck them"; they taught me how just because it was something I was supposed to know how to do. This was in the 1960s.

I really detest oysters. Their look, smell, taste. And shucking them.

[Cousin Dupree]

16. Never. But could sit at the bar for hours at Awful Arthur's in Kill Devil Hills and watch the

shucker do his thing.

[lpbk2713]

17. This is what the rethugs call the good ole days.

They want to bring back twelve hour work days for six year olds.

[Retrograde]

18. Never more than 2 dozen at a time

and I wear kevlar gloves while doing it. And it was voluntary. It does get easier the more you do it, but I can see how it can lead to RSI later in life.

[nolabear]

19. Yes. And you can cut yourself on both knives and shells.

I cannot imagine what pain those children went through.

[akraven]

20. Never shucked them at a cannery but!

Have shucked literally a bushel at a family picnic.