Technological Advances on Cannery Row From 1903-1950

Wayne Lile

May 14, 2001

Booth and His Experiment

The canning industry in what is now called “Cannery Row” began modestly in 1903 when Frank F. Booth began with an experiment. [1] He started small, typically employing one crew using a “Sacramento River seine boat.”  The seine was a double ended boat, carried a crew of ten to twelve men  and a seine or gill net. [2]   The boat also held the catch when the nets were pulled from the water.  However, there were several difficulties in using the seine boat and net combination.  The net was constructed so there was no bottom.  When the crew placed the net into the water, it would fall so that it surrounded the school being caught.  When the net reached the bottom, the crew would close the net at the bottom creating a purse, hence the name “purse seine.” If the fish were frightened, they would drop below the open bottom of the net and the fish would be lost.  This forced the boats to fish closer to the shore in shallower water where the loss was minimized.  This practice insured a good haul.  However, the boats were bringing in far less fish then the cannery could process and Booth needed to search for a more expedient method of collecting sardines from the Monterey Bay.

            In 1905, addressing the issue of larger catches, Booth authorized his captain, Pete Ferrante, to order the lampara net from Tangier [3] .  The net had a “bag of fine mesh in which the fish were trapped before they could sink.” [4]   When Ferrante returned, the net was put into prompt use.  Yet, just as quickly, the net was destroyed.  The fine mesh construction of the lampara was not strong enough to withstand the combination of both saltwater and the sardines snagged in its mesh.  Booth’s investment was not a total loss.  The basic design principal of the lampara, constructed with materials suitable to the fishing conditions, proved successful. 

At first the lampara was used in conjunction with the purse seine net.  The fisherman would use the seine during the day when they stayed close to the shore but in the evening they would use the lampara to ensure a successful catch.  In 1906 the purse seine was abandoned altogether in favor of the lampara. [5] The lampara was a miracle worker in the struggling canning industry.  The net cut the boat crew to nine members from the previous 10 to 12 men [6] and was deadly accurate in catching sardines.  The increased catches that resulted from the use of the lampara necessitated the use of larger boats with the capability to carry the catch from the bay to the cannery.  The need to accommodate the larger catches was addressed by abandoning the seine boat and instead using “larger and larger launches …with more powerful engines” [7] (Fig. 1) commonly called lampara boats.

            The resulting influx of fish swamped the canneries.  They just could not keep up, and in some instances the fish would spoil before they could be processed and canned.  Knut Hovden, a transplanted fisherman from Washington addressed this concern by developing a holding-tank, open at the bottom with a net attached to hold the fish in the bay.  This tank enabled the cannery to hold the catch until it was able to process the fish.  The innovation resulted in a far superior product in regards to its predecessor.  However, the success of the tanks was short lived when it was discovered that there was no means to protect the sardines from predators, particularly the sea lion. [8]

            The short-lived success of the holding bins forced Hovden to address a key issue if the canning industry was to thrive.  There were no practical ways to collect the fish and hold them alive until the plant was prepared to process the sardines.  Therefore, the process had to be streamlined.  He changed the cans the fish were canned in, commonly called “Iron Chinks,” into ovals and developed a soldering machine to fashion them.  He also developed a cooking method in which the sardines were fried in olive oil and then canned [9] thus eliminating the drying time that was done outdoors.  This process was flawed in only one respect: the oil was not changed enough.  As more and more sardines were fried in the same oil, bits of previous fries would remain in the vat and the result was an inferior product.  This approach remained the principal cooking method until the late 1920’s, early ’30s.  

The Great War

Within 11 years, the sardine industry was already growing leaps and bounds from its first years in Monterey.  The seine boat and net were abandoned for the larger, more efficient lampara nets and boats capable of bringing in more sardines then the canneries themselves could handle.  Even with these giant leaps in advancement, the methods and equipment used to catch and process the California sardine were nearing a renaissance of unequaled proportions.

In 1914, the world went to war and provisions had to be conserved.  The United States called for food conservation “including the eating of fish rather than meat.” [10]   Prior to the beginning of the war, the canning industries mainly produced food used for cattle and chicken feed.  But, with the declaration of the U.S., the demand for California sardines exploded. 

With the outset of the war to its end four years later, the European canneries began to cease production of their canned fish.  This left a hole that needed to be filled and the canneries both on the east and west coast in Maine and California respectively, filled the bill.  In California’s case, the production filled the void left by the European markets and trimmed the cost of a one-pound can of sardines considerably when consumers received a product that was locally made, and shipped with relative ease to markets within the state and to its neighbors. 

The fact that the European market closed their canneries also played an integral part in developing the California cannery system.  The principal countries that had at one time canned and exported sardines ceased operations to support the war effort, most notably to supply tin to the German Army. [11]   In 1916, the European market was opened to American business and for the first time in Cannery Row’s history, there was a great demand for a product that only years before was being used in an experiment to test the feasibility of using sardines as feed.

From 1894 to 1915, a total of five canneries were built in California, two of which were in Monterey.  From 1916 to 1920, 42 canneries were built addressing the increased demand. [12]   Twenty-one of the total factories built were in Monterey [13] accounting for more than 50% of the total canneries during that time span.  In 1915 only one cannery was built in Monterey but in 1916 new construction totaled 14 canneries. [14]   It is then no surprise that the yearly take of 1916 in California totaled nearly 14 million pounds more fish then the year before. [15]   In 1917, with the addition of 11 canneries in California, the sardine total rose 88 million pounds to 104 million pounds of sardines. [16]   In 1918 the catch increased to 158 million pounds, in 1919, the catch decreased to 154 million pounds and in 1920 to 119 million pounds. [17] In 1915 the cost of the California sardine was more affordable at $1.80 per case of quarter pound oil sardines compared to the price of over $7 for Maine canned sardines -- a difference of nearly $5.20 per case. [18]   The total fish canned also increased during this period of time.  In 1916, 522,609 sardines were taken from the bay.  In 1917, this figure jumped to 1,538,122 and decreased slightly in 1918 and 1919 with catch totals of 1,385,202 and 1,166,435 sardines respectively. [19]

The Equipment

Prior to the beginning of World War I, there were few boats on the Monterey Bay.  The Chinese fished the waters of the Bay and there were still a few Azuri fishermen left over from the whaling industry that thrived in the area in the late 1800’s.  In 1903, when Booth opened up his cannery in Monterey, he brought with him “two obsolete, hand propelled whaleboats, a few rowboats and sailboats, and a couple motor launches.” [20]   With the increasing demand for sardines, the number of boats began to grow.

By the end of World War I, the number of boats employed in Monterey totaled 74 with various other freelancing fishermen selling their loads to any canneries that would buy their haul.  The boats were classified into two categories, the Japanese sardine boat (Fig. 2) and the Italian sardine boat. [21] (Fig. 3) The Italian boat was relatively small and slow in the water with a top speed of six to eight miles an hour. [22]   The Japanese boats were 45 to 50 feet [23] in length eclipsing the length of the Italian boat by 10 to 15 feet. [24]   The Japanese boats also had a top speed of 9 to 12 miles an hour. [25]

             During World War I, the canning industry also saw improvements in netting technology.  Italian and Japanese nets were similar in “principal and general plan but differed in details of design as completely as do the types of boats.” [26]   The Italian “Lampara” or round haul net, employed methods of closing its wings around the catch while at the same time pulling the net into the boat.  In the process, the fish were caught in the bunt, which, when closed up, created a bag that held the sardines. [27]   In the hands of a skilled captain, the Italian round haul was an effective netting method. But more often than not, large portions of catches were lost due to the slowness of pulling in the wings. The Japanese round haul also varied from the Italian net in that it was longer, fished deeper, and had a lead line running from the boat to the bunt of the net.  When the crew began to pull in the catch, the lead line was pulled in closing the bunt. [28]   The effect was that the lead line quickly closed off the sardines’ escape route.  The use of the Japanese round haul became increasingly popular other nationalities also employed the Japanese round haul. [29]

Even though the purse seine was abandoned in favor of the Italian lampara net and the Japanese round haul in 1915, the older net did not just disappear.  The net found others uses, particularly in Southern California to fish for “barracuda, white sea bass, yellowtail and mackerel.” [30]   In 1925, the owner of a purse seine boat acquired an old purse seine and began using it to catch sardines.  The owner met with surprising success and by 1925 there were 25 purse seine boats operating in San Pedro. [31] In the 1926 season, two boats began using the purse seine in Monterey. The purse seines can be classified into two categories, the purse seine and the ring net. [32]   The ring net is similar in construction to that of the purse seine but is smaller. This trend persisted until 1929 when at the beginning of the 1929-30-sardine season, an influx of ring net crews started fishing in the Bay.  The competition created by the large catches of the purse seiners caused the majority of fishermen to abandon the lampara and begin using the ring nets.  By 1934, the purse seine had found its way back into the Monterey canning industry.  There were 61chartered purse seine boats operating in Monterey waters, more than any other season. [33]   For the entire 1933-34-sardine season, a total of 84 boats made deliveries and all but one of them used the purse seine. [34]  

The ring nets were constructed so that the net creating a wall circled the sardines.  Then the nets two loose ends were reeled into the boat creating a “purse”. [35]   A ring net was capable of taking more then 50 tons worth of sardines out of the bay in a single set and few were lost from the net.  This resulted in the need for larger boats to accommodate the catch.  In some cases, boat captains were quick to adopt the use of the ring nets but did so while continuing to use lampara boats.  In order to haul the catch, it was necessary to pull a lighter along when the boats went out. 

The majority of the fishermen who used a lampara/lighter combination were locals and either could not afford the bigger, more mechanized purse seine boats or were slow in coming around to the advances in technology.  This slowness mirrors the sluggish beginning of the lampara net in 1905.  Purse seine boats did not have to worry about carrying along the extra weight of a lighter and therefore made a much faster job of catching and transferring their catch to the holds.

Due to the long hours out at sea, and the increasing size of the hauls, it became necessary to find alternate ways of moving the fish from net to boat. This process was accomplished in several ways.  First, everything done on the lampara boat was conducted by hand.  The nets were pulled from the water and then the sardines were transferred from the net to the lighter by means of a dip net. (Fig. 4)  The dip net used on the lampara boats and the purse seine boats when unloading at the cannery had a “mouth 3-3 ½ feet in diameter from which is suspended a netted bag 4 feet deep.” [37]

On the purse seine, the net was pulled in by a power wench and was collected on a rotating table. [38]   It is important to note that the largest lampara only has a holding capacity of 60 tons. [39]   Any fish a crew takes, it has to haul the net in, unload the fish to the boat with the small dip net and then unload the fish in the same fashion at the cannery, all by hand.  The purse seine, having a high mast, long boom and power enables the boat to use a larger version of the dip net. [40] (Fig. 5) The average hours worked on the lampara, from catch to unload was two for a 60-ton catch.  The purse seine, with its capabilities, could take 200 tons of sardines in the same span of the time. [41]

From the Boat to the Cannery

Hoyden overhauled the unloading process in 1916 when he converted the hoppers to a suction system that pulled the catch directly into the cannery. [43]   The hoppers employed a pipe system that had a six-inch intake.  The relatively small size of the intake resulted in an unloading process that could take up to four hours but was believed that time could be cut in half by employing a 12 to 14 inch intake. [44]   The suction system persisted on the bay until 1975 when the hoppers were deemed navigational hazards. [45]

During World War I, the number of canneries in Monterey exploded.  One of the design principals employed by these new canneries was to build a pier out into the bay and include an elevator with a conveyor line similar to those used in grain elevators. [48] .  This new design enabled boats to dock right at the cannery and quickly unload their catch, clearing the way for other boats to do the same.  With the exception of the storage hoppers in the bay, all the methods of delivering the sardines from the boat to the cannery survived until the early 1950’s when the sardine industry collapsed.   

Processing the Catch

            During the pre-war canning industry, the canning techniques employed were archaic in nature.  The fish were air dried, then cut by hand and then finally fried and canned.  This method was tedious and required an inordinate amount of time to process.  The loss of potential profits increased the need to mechanize the canning process.

After the fish have been delivered to the cannery, the sardines are weighed to determine the tonnage the boat brought in. [49] Then, through a water and gravity system, [50] the sardines are sent to holding vats where they await the initial stage of processing.  As the sardines are processed, the fish in the holding vats are sent through a scaling machine. (Fig. 7) Through a combination of the scaling screen and the sardines rubbing against one another, the sardines were completely scaled before they reached the cutting table. [51]

After the fish were brined they contained too much water and hence were unfit for frying. [55]   This problem was solved by developing a tunnel drier, which used a heater coil to heat air that was forced into the drying chamber. [56]   This process was updated by 1935 when the sardines were first packed into their cans and then run through the driers.  A method described as precooking. [57]   After the brining and drying process were completed, the sardines were placed in shallow net baskets and fried. [58]   Once the sardines were sufficiently cooled, they were packed into oval cans and sent to the exhausting station. [59]   It is here that the sauce was added and the cans were sealed. From 1921 to 1935, very little changed in terms of how the sardines were processed with one notable alteration; the pre-cook frying method was abandoned for the already canned steamed pre-cook. [60]

Summary

           The Monterey canning industry, while short lived, advanced its technology at an astonishing rate.  From its humble beginnings in 1903 to its ultimate demise in the 1950’s, the techniques used to catch, transport and process the sardines changed at a rate unequaled by other industries.  The delicate nature of the product and the promise of profits led to a more streamlined system.  We can only imagine where the industry might stand today had the sardines not disappeared.

Selected Bibliography

Elmer Higgins and Harlan B. Holmes, “Methods of Sardine Fishing in Southern California,”

    California Fish and Game, vol. 7, no. 4 (1921), 219-237.

Harry B. Beard, “California Sardine Food Products and Their Preparation,” California Fish and

    Game, vol. 7, no. 4 (1921), 238-247.

J. B. Phillips, “A Survey of the Destructiveness of Sardine Nets Used in the Monterey Region,”

    California Fish and Game, vol. 18, no. 3 (1932), 208-218.

J. B. Phillips, “Changes in Sardine Fishing Gear in the Monterey Region, with a Note on

    Expansion of Fishing Grounds,” California Fish and Game, vol. 20, no. 2 (1934), 134-145.

J. B. Phillips, “Notes on Sardine Gear Changes at Monterey,” California Fish and Game, vol. 23,

    no. 3 (1937), 221-223.

Maxine Knox, Steinbeck’s Street: Cannery Row (San Rafael, California: Presidio Press, 1980), 1-97.

Paul Bonnot, “Report on the Relative Merits and Demerits of Purse Seines vs. Lampara Nets in the

    Taking of Sardines,” California Fish and Game, vol. 16, no. 2 (1930), 125-130.

Richard S. Croker, “Sardine Canning Methods in California," California Fish and Game, vol. 21, no. 1 (1935), 10- 23.

Robert Enea, “The Politics of the California Sardine,” The J. B. Phillips Historical Fisheries Report,

   vol. 2, no. 1 (Spring 2001), 2-14.

W. L. Scofield, “Purse Seines for California Sardines,” California Fish and Game, vol. 12, no. 1

   (1926), 16-19.

Will Thompson, “Historical Review of California Sardine Industry,” California Fish and Game,

   vol. 7, no. 2 (1921), 195-205.

Pictures

Fig. 1 - Paul Bonnot, “Report on the Relative Merits and Demerits of Purse Seines vs. Lampara Nets in the

       Taking of Sardines,” California Fish and Game, vol. 16, no. 2 (1930), 126.

Fig. 2 - Elmer Higgins and Harlan B. Holmes, “Methods of Sardine Fishing in Southern California,”

          California Fish and Game, vol. 7, no. 4 (1921), 231.

Fig. 3 - Elmer Higgins and Harlan B. Holmes, “Methods of Sardine Fishing in Southern California,”

          California Fish and Game, vol. 7, no. 4 (1921), 221.

Fig. 4 - Paul Bonnot, “Report on the Relative Merits and Demerits of Purse Seines vs. Lampara Nets in the

            Taking of Sardines,” California Fish and Game, vol. 16, no. 2 (1930), 128.

Fig. 5 - Francis N. Clark, “Science Looks at the Sardine,” The J. B. Phillips Historical Fisheries Report,

             vol. 2, no. 1 (Spring 2001), 2-14.

Fig. 6 - Will F. Thompson, “The Sardine of California,” California Fish and Game, vol. 7, no. 4 (1921),

             192.

Fig. 7 - Richard S. Croker, “Sardine Canning Methods in California," California Fish and Game, vol.     

            21, no. 1 (1935), 12.

Fig 8 - Richard S. Croker, “Sardine Canning Methods in California," California Fish and Game, vol. 

             21, no. 1 (1935), 13.