Editor's Note: This is the first of a two-part series tracing the rich cultural identity inherent in Biloxi's Searfood Industry.
When John O. Seeligman, the city engineer of Biloxi in 1900, surveyed and drew the official city map, he called Biloxi "the recognized metropolis of the Mississippi Sea Shore." The city owned about twenty-five miles of streets "all of which are shelled and well adapted for vehicles and bicycles." Biloxi boasted a lovely seashore drive "passing all the beautiful summer residents of the Southern privileged class." Furthermore, the city had "two ice houses and one cold storage house which answered all the requirements of a modern city."
Seeligman's exceedingly complimentary description was not far from the truth. As early as the 1850s Biloxi was one of the nation's premiere resorts. Grand hotels graced the waterfront, steamers from New Orleans, Louisiana and Mobile, Alabama made regular stops in Biloxi, and fresh seafood was always available. The cool Gulf breezes and sandy beaches lured tourists and summer residents to Biloxi, but the seafood industry was at the core of Biloxi's economic development.
Many claim that the seafood industry built Biloxi. The industry burgeoned around the turn of the century. Polish migrants from Baltimore, Slavonian immigrants, and Louisiana Cajun's provided the labor that laid the foundations for Biloxi's station as "Seafood Capital of the World." Biloxi's latest immigrants to the seafood industry, the Vietnamese, arrived during the late 1970s and early 80s and revived the languid industry by accepting jobs in the packing plants. They built their own boats, opened businesses, and have become a vibrant part of the Biloxi seafood and ethnic community.
In approaching the study of ethnicity in Biloxi or any community, one must not confuse an ethnic group with an immigrant group. 1 Certainly many of the customs and traits of an ethnic group stem from earlier immigrant traditions. However, in a new environment and over time an immigrant group adapts its customs to fit a new environment. Thus, second, third, and subsequent generations are not part of an immigrant group but are a part of an ethnic group. This is true among Biloxi Slavonians and Cajun's and is gradually proving so among the Vietnamese who conduct business in English and have adopted American customs of dress, music, and speech.
An ethnic group shares common beliefs and patterns of living--religion, customs, literature, cuisine, language. 2 Ethnic studies in the South have in large measure concentrated on the region's Anglo and African American traditions and relations, particularly in terms of the South's agricultural history. Biloxi, Mississippi, is one city that stands apart from the pattern of the Anglo/Afro cultural makeup. This Gulf-side city grew from a small fishing community and vacation spot to a multi- ethnic city built around a thriving seafood industry. Biloxi's geographic location is largely responsible for its unique culture. With its economy centered upon seafood, the port city attracted diverse peoples, thus creating an avenue of cultural interaction, which contributed to the free flowing exchange of ideas and customs.
Biloxi's seafood community forms a folk cultural group whose members share a common knowledge, belief system, experience, and set of traditions. The occupational and ethnic identities of the seafood community go hand in hand. Without the industry there may not have been the number of immigrants, and without the immigrants, the industry's development might have lagged. Ethnic ties diversify the community's members and add another dimension to their culture. The influence of the occupational and ethnic culture extends beyond immediate seafood industry participants to residents of Biloxi and the coastal community who experience this culture in different ways. Slavonians, Cajun's, and Vietnamese practice professions outside of the seafood industry. Tourists and non-industry residents watch and participate in the Blessing of the Fleet. Others identify with the culture by simply purchasing Gulf seafood or by observing the patterns of maritime work from afar. Many coast residents identify the symbols of fishing and shrimping with their home community.
In the one hundred plus years of its existence, the Biloxi seafood industry has witnessed remarkable technological advances. It has also been subjected to the depletion of resources, government regulation, and import competition. The one constant that has remained is its multi-ethnic nature. Occupational and ethnic membership link to mold an identity particular to this community.
As with any folk group, the Biloxi seafood community has boundaries, those created by participants themselves and those created by others. Boundaries help define who they are and who they are not. Yet, just as culture is dynamic, so are its boundaries evershifting to accommodate or exclude new forces. These boundaries take different shapes both physical and cultural, from neighborhoods and life on the boat and in the factories, to language, ethnicity, religious traditions, and occupational knowledge.
These boundaries help the group exist within the broader community as they set people, actions, and attitudes into an identifiable context. Boundaries are defined by both ethnic and occupational lines. For example, neighborhood boundaries once identified a person's economic and social background. Point Cadet and Back Bay Biloxi are traditionally the fisherman's locale. Biloxi's ethnic organizations provided a similar defining role. When the Slavonians and Cajun's formed their respective benevolent societies, the Slavic Benevolent Association and the Fleur de Lis Society, the initial purpose was to assist newcomers in their transition to America. More importantly, these ethnic organizations fixed certain cultural boundaries and reinforced their own community values and traditions. Their clubs afforded a means of expressing their own culture within the broader city itself.
Striking a balance between ethnic and occupational ties has been fundamental to the culture of the seafood community. Membership in an ethnic group varies as the individual decides to what degree he or she will identify with the group. The more strongly a person identifies with a particular group the more it determines his concept of himself, who he interacts with, and his cultural outlook. 3 By the same token, the group determines whom it will allow to be a member. The stronger the identification the more likely that person is to create stringent boundaries and dismiss those he perceives as lacking the qualities of a true member. While many of Slavonian and Cajun background remain in Biloxi, not all those work in the seafood industry. During my research I interviewed a man who identified with his Slavonian fisherman heritage though he grew up in Uptown Biloxi and never worked on the boats. He was an active and respected member of the Slavonian Lodge, but a few of the older members joked about his claim. "He never stepped foot on a shrimp boat," they said. These men placed occupational experience on par with ethnic background as part of their standards of inclusion. Within their defining boundaries, he was not a full member of the group.
How then do members of the Biloxi Seafood community construct an identity, and how do they maintain that identity? Furthermore, how do they influence and feel the influence of the broader community? Noting the dynamic interaction and adaptation of incoming national and cultural groups in New Orleans, Louisiana, George F. Reinecke utilized the term "creolization" 4 to refer to the result of the interactive forces which led to the creation of a local ethnicity. Though on a much smaller population scale, Biloxi claims a similar history. Here the number of ethnic groups is fewer, but the basic premise the same: interaction of the ethnic groups helped create a community identity, and occupational links reinforced. The multi-ethnic nature of the seafood industry was present in its beginnings and continues today. Slavonians, Cajun's, and Vietnamese each contributed to the cultural landscape of Biloxi. Their livelihood has been their shared culture, but they also strive to maintain their separate ethnic identities. Biloxi's history illustrates a continuum of ethnic influences in one Southern port city and how those diverse elements fashioned a community identity.
When French explorers landed in the eighteenth century, Indians along the Gulf Coast taught them how to tong for oysters on the offshore reefs and how to catch the many kinds of fish, especially flounder, indigenous to the Gulf Waters. Descendants of these early French settlers still live in Biloxi. The Coast abounds with family names such as Ladner, Moran, and Necaise. They were the first to learn the tools of the trade of the industry. They developed the Biloxi boat-building tradition and later passed this knowledge on to Slavonian immigrants.
The natural landscape of the Biloxi area was conducive to the growth of the seafood industry. The city sits on a peninsula between Biloxi Bay and the Mississippi Sound. The locales refer to "Back Bay" as the land on the Bay side, and the land on the eastern most point facing the Sound is Point Cadet. The barrier islands, Deer, Cat, Ship and Horn, separate the Mississippi Sound from the Gulf of Mexico. West of the islands lie the fertile shrimping and fishing grounds of the Louisiana waters and marshes. The Sound, a broad area of shallow water, is an important ecosystem that supports the food chain essential to the seafood fisheries. At one time the Sound was plentiful with shrimp, fish and oysters. Shrimpers sailed in flat-bottom boats designed for the calmer Sound waters, and oystermen on skiffs could easily reach the shallow reefs. As the number of boats increased, they taxed the supply within the Sound, thus forcing the fishermen to new waters. The Gulf, which lies just beyond the barrier islands, was an untapped source. Motorized wood and steel hull boats and mechanized equipment made it possible to harvest in the Gulf. Today most of the commercial catch comes from Gulf waters.
For much of its early existence, Biloxi was a small fishing town with a few resorts for summer visitors. Fresh seafood was available on the Coast but not inland. The 1869 opening of the railroad that linked Biloxi to inland markets, coupled with the mass production of ice and the introduction of the process of commercially canning shrimp, made it possible for the Biloxi seafood industry to expand and earn the title "Seafood Capital of the World."
The first seafood cannery on the Coast opened in 1881 in Biloxi. The combined talents and investments of several Coast businessmen laid the foundations for the seafood industry. With $8,000 and foresight for a sound business venture, Lazaro Lopez, F. William Elmer, W.K.M. DuKate, William Gorenflo and James Maycock established Lopez, Elmer and Company. The ethnic make-up of this union embodied the cultural diversity that the industry as a whole would gradually develop.
F. William Elmer of Biloxi and William Gorenflo of Bay St. Louis were the only Coast natives in the group. Lopez, a Spanish immigrant, held a successful business in Cuba before coming to the United States. Maycock, a native of Hull, England, came to Biloxi when he was thirteen. The last of the pioneers was W.K.M. DuKate of Fredericksburg, Indiana. DuKate was a key figure in the initial success of the canning industry. In the 1880s, DuKate travelled to Baltimore, Maryland, the nation's leading city in seafood packing, to study the process and familiarize himself with the equipment. This newly acquired knowledge prepared his company for immediate success.
Slavonians and Louisiana Acadians . . . they all got along well. Lot of French, lot of Slavonians,and some Americans. As they prospered a little more, they moved to other areas. Uptown was the place to live. We were the Point, the factory people.--Vencentia Kuljis Trehan
These early ventures paved the way for Biloxi's economic development. As the industry steadily grew, Point Cadet, then virtually uninhabited, and Back Bay underwent enormous expansion. The population grew along with new construction. Initially Biloxi's population was not large enough to support the rapid growth and demand for factory employees. Faced with a shortage in the labor force, owners began importing experienced laborers from Baltimore to fill the plants. These Polish, or "Bohemian", seasonal workers were the first large group to move into the city. Owners paid their train passage and housed them in the shotgun houses located near the factories.
The Biloxi seafood camps resembled the paternalistic mill towns that emerged in the Piedmont region of the Southeast. They were self-contained, self-sufficient communities that worked to the advantage of the owners who provided their employees with basic needs. The camps benefited the owners, providing a readily available source of workers. Cheap rent and a company store that carried basic supplies kept the workforce concentrated in the area around the factories. Perhaps the major benefit to the workers was that they could live near their family and friends. This setting reinforced their ethnic identity and enabled them to retain certain cultural traits and traditions that might otherwise have been lost. It also encouraged an exchange of cultures when Slavonians and Cajun's started to live in the camps and afterward when they built their own homes in Point Cadet and Back Bay.
The rapid growth of industry led to a rise in population. The city's population doubled in a ten-year period and reached 3,234 by 1890. By the turn of the century, Biloxi had five canneries, nine oyster dealers and five "Bohemian camps." Barataria employed five hundred people, half in the factory and half on the boats. 5 Lopez and DuKate had a fleet of sixty vessels. The camps and the fishing industry flourished.
The decline of the camps and of the paternalistic nature of the industry occurred when the industry began to decentralize at the end of World War I. Prior to that the same men owned both the boats and the factories. Through their complete control over production and distribution, and their influence over the workforce, the factory owners held the reins on the economic growth and social and cultural development of the industry. The move toward unionization, and the increase in the workforce, especially those interested in owning a boat, challenged the paternalistic management structure. Once seasonal workers, the fisherman were now people who came to Biloxi to make the Gulf Coast city their permanent home.
The population increase was due in large part to two immigrant groups: those from the Dalmatian coast of what became Yugoslavia, and the Louisiana Cajun's. Those who came from Yugoslavia were mainly Croats, with Serbs and Slavonians making up a smaller percentage of the group. 6 Croats and Serbs are south Slavic groups that populated the Dalmation Coast along the Adriatic Sea and the inland areas of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia. Though united for almost four hundred years as part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, then as one Yugoslav state following World War I, each ethnic group has a separate, distinctive history. It is difficult to determine how many of the immigrants were Croats, Serbs or Slavonian because nineteenth-century immigrants identified themselves according to the region from which they came: Dalmatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Slavonia. Also, until 1918 the United States Immigration Service did not distinguish between immigrants from the Austria- Hungarian empire. 7
The greatest immigration occurred during the early twentieth-century and immediately after World War I. Many of the immigrants to Biloxi were rural landless peasants, sailors, political refugees, and men avoiding conscription. 8 The prospect of life on the Gulf Coast appealed to Slavonians. By the late 1700s port towns such as Dubrovnik had established ties with the Gulf and Atlantic states, and by the 1850s many Slavonians were permanent settlers in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Their immigration preceded the birth of the Biloxi seafood industry, but its emergence as a viable economic force attracted more Slavonians to the Coast. Their experience as sailors and fishermen served them well in Biloxi. Even those without experience or English skills could work in the factories and fare well. Family members immigrated one at a time and reunited in Biloxi. Over the years, some Slavonians have kept their ties to the homeland. As one second generation Biloxian said, "The Yugoslavs are 'close knit.' You look after your family no matter where they are." 9 Recently, members of the Slavonian community hosted two men injured in the war in Bosnia. They offered their homes and free medical treatment for the men during their two months of recuperation.
Slavonian immigration reached its peak prior to 1917, when the quota still allowed for large numbers. When the government cut the quota, many settled in other countries, such as Mexico. A few of those arrived there by mistake. A story told frequently on Point Cadet is that Peter Kuljis earned his nickname "South American" Pete because he landed in South America, not the American South. 10
The migration of the Cajun's (Louisiana French) to Biloxi occurred around the same time the Slavonians arrived. Cajun's inhabited the southern region of Louisiana about 200 miles from Biloxi. Most of those who moved to Mississippi were rural folk, small farmers, and sharecroppers. The failure of the sugar cane crop in the 1920s put many Cajun's out of work and left them penniless. Biloxi resident Neville "Te-Jean" Broussard moved from Lafayette when he was four years old. As he recalls, dire economic conditions motivated his family and others like them to seek better opportunities in Biloxi: "My daddy was a sharecropper. He'd work and work and at the end of the year he never saw any progress. He had no education. He was under their control. Like the song, 'owed everything to the company store.' So we moved. Many families came over here (to Biloxi). 11
The failure of the sugar cane crop coincided with a period of enormous growth in the Biloxi seafood industry. Factory owners went to south Louisiana cities such as New Iberia, Lafayette, and Broussard to recruit workers. 12 Large numbers of Cajun's migrated to Biloxi in search of economic opportunity. The move not only provided job opportunities, but also put them in contact with other ethnic groups. Removed from its roots and no longer insulated in isolated farm communities, the Cajun culture in Biloxi became diffuse and was transformed over the years. Thus, a Cajun culture unique to the Coast developed within the Biloxi seafood industry.
Slavonians and Cajun's entered the profession basically at the same level--as fishermen or factory workers. Although some Slavonians had maritime experience, they were unfamiliar with the environment. Each group had to adapt to a different working environment, which included working among various ethnic peoples. Even if they did not crew on the same boats, they worked for the same factories and came in daily contact on the docks, in the camps or in the neighborhoods. As many Biloxians remember, the Slavonians and Cajun's mingled freely, but in the early years tended to keep to themselves. Such measures enabled them to better preserve their customs and traditions. Families worked together on the boats and in the factories though most maintain it was for convenience sake rather than for xenophobia. Their daily lives were an affirmation of ethnic identity as well as a continuous intercultural exchange.
Part of their identity was their occupation as well. From harvesting to processing the catch involved the work of many hands, each with a particular task and each with a different working knowledge. Entire families of Slavonians and Cajun's took part in the work, often side by side. Their mutual experience as fishermen and factory workers cut across ethnic lines and bound them together in a common livelihood. Their working knowledge united them in their profession, and their occupation united them under a common way of life. Although occupational identity has the potential for overriding ties such as ethnicity, in Biloxi the occupational identity of Slavonians and Cajun's tended to reinforce their ethnic identity rather than supplant it. Furthermore, it distinguished them from other Biloxians of a different ethnic background, neighborhood, or occupation.
...It took more than just a good sailor. It took a man 'born to the tiller'.--Carl McIntire, The Biloxi Schooner
The division of labor in Biloxi followed along gender lines. Historically, fishermen on the boats have almost always been men. They were hunters of the sea, and women were thought to bring bad luck if they boarded a boat. For the fisherman, fishing was far from recreation. It was their occupation, and how they viewed themselves and their surroundings was shaped by their work.
Crews on the boats remained almost exclusively male in part because of the nature of the physical labor involved. The hand-operated seines, nets, sails, and dredges meant back-breaking labor for the captain and crew. Young boys often worked in the factories with the women until they were old enough to go on the boats. They began as deckhands keeping the boat clean, culling the catch, and earning their pay by selling the fish caught in the nets. Gradually, they developed the skill and strength to do more of the work on board. The boat was both living and working quarters, and everyone had to know his job and place in order for the work to go smoothly. Time spent on board as a deckhand was a period of apprenticeship as young boys learned the skill and acquired the working knowledge from the more experienced men.
Biloxi and other Coast fishermen designed boats specifically suited to their needs and the Gulf waters. Flatbottom double-sail boats called catboats were the most common boats used in the earliest days but later proved insufficient to fill the supply demands. Schooners, because of their size and sail power, replaced catboats as the vessel of choice. When a hurricane in 1893 destroyed a large portion of the fleet, boatbuilders replaced their loses with a new type of boat known as the Biloxi schooner. 13 Similar to the Chesapeake and Baltimore schooner, the Biloxi had a broad beam for large crews, a shallow draft suited to inland bodies of water, and sail power enough to drag the oyster dredges and shrimp nets. Builders used cypress from the Louisiana swamps for the frames and planking and Mississippi long leaf yellow pine for the keel, masts and spars. They ranged in size from fifty to sixty feet. The largest ever built, the Mary Margaret (65'), could carry five hundred barrels of oysters. Schooners also served as freight boats carrying lumber, charcoal and fruit between New Orleans and Mobile. Although they were good work boats and heavy haulers, they earned the nickname "white winged queens" because of their grace and beauty under sail.
Boat building, another occupation tied to the industry, was exclusively male also. Once again, as with shrimping and oystering, young men learned boat skills, design, and building through an apprenticeship period. Boat building was a tradition in some Biloxi families as fathers taught their sons the trade. The Covacevich family founded their boat yard in Back Bay in 1896. "I built plenty of boats, God knows," said eighty-six year old Anthony "Tony Jack" Covacevich, whose father and grandfather started the business. Tony Jack's brother Neil owns Bay Marine at Point Cadet, and a deceased brother, Oral, also built boats. Tony Jack Covacevich began as a teenager building model boats improving on the designs his father built. His father recognized his talent and had Tony Jack design all his boats. Covacevich has launched over one hundred and fifty boats of all types from schooners to mine sweepers. He loved building wooden boats, but those days are gone, he says. The scarcity of good wood, such as cypress and juniper, makes those wooden boats that exist very precious indeed. Covacevich's last wooden boat, which he completed in 1969, survived Hurricane Camille and is still at sail in Florida. 14
During the summer months the fishermen laid their nets to rest and allowed the shrimp crop to propagate. Some men spent the off-season working odd jobs such as house painting, but mainly they prepared for the next season. They mended nets, fixed equipment, and hauled the boats out of the water for cleaning and repair. The test of the refurbishing efforts was racing, and schooner racing developed as a recreational activity tied to Biloxi's seafood industry.
Although technically fishermen were competing for a catch as they worked, everyone was a winner who brought in a catch. Schooner racing, however, was a different story. Turning work vehicles into competitive machines, the races became as important as working itself. Proving one's mettle during the races was a crucial step in becoming a good fisherman. Rivalry was keen as the fastest boat from each cannery competed against the others. At times contests grew so heated they resulted in shouting matches, a bowsprit through a competitor's sail, and shotgun blasts fired across the bow of a rival boat. The community turned out for the events as well to cheer on family and friends or the factory boat. The fishermen who raced and the community members that watched affirmed and celebrated their unique maritime way of life.
By the mid 1930s the white wing queens had virtually disappeared. Power boats were the way of the future for the seafood industry, and fishermen displayed an ability to adapt to changing needs. Most owners simply converted their schooners to power boats by cutting off the masts and installing engines. Boat builders later designed a power boat known as the Biloxi lugger. On this boat the cabin rests astern and the foredeck is clear for unloading and culling the catch. By 1915 power boats had taken over shrimping, but schooners remained in use for oystering. However, in 1933 the Mississippi Seafood Conservation laws approved power boat dredging, and the Biloxi schooner lost its economic importance and went the way of other outdated equipment.
Despite technological advances, work life essentially did not change. Whether aboard the schooners or the Biloxi luger, work was still physically demanding, and the philosophy remained the same: Work on a Sunday, work on a holiday, work when the weather was good, and work even when the weather was not so good. Work was non-stop, said retired fisherman Louis Trebotich: "It was around the clock. The boats was always busy. If they wasn't shrimping, they was drudging." 15
Almost every moment on board entailed some sort of work: mending or setting nets, clearing the deck or culling the catch. Crew members constantly practiced and honed their skills. As if to reaffirm this image of "all work and no play," fishermen say they had little time for pleasure or social activity on board. Card playing, storytelling, the occasional guitar playing and singing filled in the few spare moments. Those who smoked stocked up on cigarettes and maybe a little wine for meals before leaving shore.
Biloxi fisherman emphasize they had no time on board to be lazy or rest, however, meal times provided a short respite from work. The Biloxi Schooners had only a charcoal stove with room for one pot. The cook, an appointed crew member, prepared everything in that one pot, slumgullion style (one ingredient over another in the same pot). Of course, the typical menu included seafood. Shrimp or oyster spaghetti, gumbo, jambalaya, courtboullion, and the Yugoslav bachelor (dried fish) were common meals. The Biloxi bakeries made a special bread for the fishermen called "boat bread" which sold for a nickel a loaf. Boat bread or hard tack accompanied every meal. While the meal was sure to tempt the palate, the choice of beverages usually did not vary: coffee, Barq's rootbeer (originated and brewed in Biloxi), or claret wine (sweet wine) with a little water in it, "so it don't make you droopy." 16
Time and time again one hears of the culinary talents of the Biloxi fishermen who learned their craft on a boat. Even today at the Slavonian Lodge, the Fleur de Lis Club, or at home the men will take charge of the kitchen. Steve Trebotich was the cook on board a boat for eleven years, and still cooks today. When I interviewed him and his brother, Steve was busy preparing gumbo. Louis testifies that Steve was the best cook on the water. Steve said he had no choice in the matter, but now he enjoys sharing his skill.
Just everybody had to work to make a living because then you got paid very little for what you done. And the first job I had was in the shell mills, grinding up shells and that was $.04 an hour.--Clarence Disilvey
While shrimping and oystering were exclusively male tasks, the factory work was predominantly the female domain. Some men did work in the factories and most children, including boys, began their career in the factories where they cut their teeth on the skills and work ethic necessary to make it in the industry. Documentary photographer Lewis Hine photographed young factory workers in Biloxi in the 1880s and exposed the harsh conditions under which they worked. As the boys grew older most took jobs on the boats while the women stayed in the factories.
Since the factories lacked nurseries, women brought their small children to work with them. They constructed play pens or put the children on the floor next to them where they learned how to do their mothers' work. 17 Although people often tend to glorify the "good ole' days," when Biloxians speak of the early days in the seafood industry, they temper remarks on the abundance of the supply with memories of long hours, little pay, and child labor. Mary Kuljis, who spent over fifty of her eighty-six years in the seafood factories, recalled her work:
The first job I had was in the factory, in the cannery where they had oysters and shrimp...They had so many shrimp and so many oysters they couldn't take care of them. Sometime they had to throw them away because there wasn't enough workers to do the job. So they brought children, twelve, thirteen years old to work. 18
Children age fourteen could receive a work card which allowed them to work legally in the factory, but most had a factory job at an even younger age. When inspectors came to check work cards, the underage children would hide lest they get caught and removed from the factory. They balanced their work with their education. Before attending school each morning, the children went to work in the factories. They returned once classes ended and put in two or three more hours at the picking tables or oyster carts earning $.50 or $1.00 a day.
Sea Coast, Kaluz's, Gulf Central, Dunbar and Dukate, and other factories lined the Point and Back Bay. Closeby lived the women who kept the factories running. They usually worked at one factory, season after season. The factory owners wanted the fastest pickers and shuckers so they took care of their employees, and employees in turn felt loyalty to the factory. However, if the management mistreated them, they could go down the street to another cannery. An experienced factory employee could always find a job. One former employee said that the women chose the factory according to which boats brought in the catch. They knew which boats brought in the biggest oysters, which made their job of shucking easier, then went to the factory where those boats offloaded.
The work day in the canneries began early. Each factory had a whistle with its own distinctive sound, which signalled the arrival of the catch and summoned people to work. Andrew Melancon recalls going to the factory at two o'clock in the morning to insure he had a place to work. The blow of the whistle signalled an end to rest and the start of another busy day, as Melancon recalls:
I was still working when I met my wife. I would go with her till about twelve or one o'clock, then go home. I'd keep one eye open at a time as I walked home cause I didn't have a car or a bike. I'd have to walk from uptown to the Point. I'd sleep one eye at a time while going home, and when I go home I'd hurry up and get to bed. And listen and hope to heck that my whistle wouldn't blow...If it blowed I'd jump up and get down there and get started. It was one heck of a life. 19
Although different from boat work, the work in the factories was equally as rigorous and demanding. Factory conditions did not make for easy work. The factories were always cold, especially in the winter during oyster season. Women wore heavy stockings and wrapped their legs in newspaper to keep warm. Their hands grew cold after working with the icy shrimp, hour after hour. One woman recalled how her mother would bring bowls of hot water from home for her children to warm their hands. Tables lined the factory floors during shrimp season, and women stood on either side of the tables to "headless" and pick the shrimp. They dropped the hulls to the floor and swept up later. Although it might appear as though they worked as a team around a picking table or oyster cart, each worker was paid according to the amount of shrimp she picked and thus rewarded for her individual speed. The work was demanding and the hours were long, as several Biloxians attest. Andrew Melancon remembers:
When I was part of the processing crew, I'd go in at 2:00 A.M. Might be six in the evening before I got off. I was making $.35 an hour. Top pay. I was making more than my uncle who was head teller at a bank. But he was putting in forty hours, and I was putting in a hundred and forty hours. That's the difference. But we needed the money, and I didn't mind. 20
From the picking shed, the shrimp went to the packing room for the cooking and canning process. Once sealed, the cans were pressure cooked in a large iron drum to kill any remaining bacteria. Employees removed any "swell heads" (cans of bad shrimp that caused the can to swell) at this stage. From there, the women took the cans, labeled them by hand before boxing them and shipping them to the warehouse. Today the labeling, canning, and, to some degree, picking are mechanized processes.
During the oyster season, the work environment was much the same. Oyster shucking was piece work also. Women equipped with an oyster knife, a glove, and finger stars (small pieces of cloth to cover the thumb and forefinger of the hand holding the knife) stood eight to a cart, four on each side, shucking oysters and placing them in a cup. An oyster cup attached to the side of the cart and held about a gallon of oysters. A series of railroad tracks ran from the loading docks inside and throughout the factory. The men unloaded the oysters into the carts. Four or five carts at a time rolled into the steamboxes to steam open the oysters. From the steamroom, a line of about nine carts travelled on one of the tracks running to the shucking room. The eight women that worked at a cart usually worked together all the time. In a sense then, they were a team. They tended to be friends or relatives, sometimes all Slavonians or all Cajun's.
Factory work was similar to the apprenticeship period on the boats. Young girls learned by watching and imitating the more experienced women. Eventually it became second nature. To pass the time the women conversed or sang as they worked. If they were all Slavonian or Cajun they might speak in their native tongue. A sense of community existed both in and outside of the workplace. They combined socializing with their work, not that they took their jobs any less seriously than the men, but the work environment allowed for more social insertion.
During the first half of the 20th century the Biloxi seafood industry and seafood community were steadily evolving. Development in technology and changes in the ethnic milieu created a dynamic industrial and cultural community that continues today. Biloxi schooners gave way to luggers only to be rediscovered in later year and re-instituted as community cultural symbols and tourist attractions. Slavonians and Cajun's created ethnic organizations to maintain their identity. In the 1970s Vietnamese refugees became the latest ethnic group involved in the Gulf Coast seafood industry, and they, too, would form a their own community and maintain group identity through family, religious, and cultural traditions. This diversity and development that marked the Biloxi seafood industry in the late 1800s would continue, then, and take on new manifestations in the latter part of the 1900s.
Biloxi, Mississippi City Directory, 1905.
Sanborn Fire Map, City of Biloxi, Mississippi 1914 and 1925.
City of Biloxi, Mississippi Public Library, Oral History Collection: interviews with families involved in the seafood industry.
City of Biloxi, Mississippi Public Library, Vertical Files: schooners, seafood industry, ethnic groups.
Arden, Harvey. "Troubled Odyssey of Vietnamese Fishermen," National Geographic, September 1981.
Byington, Robert H., ed. Working Americans. Los Angeles: California Folklore Society, 1978.
Canis, William F., William J. Neal, Orrin H. Pilkey, Sr., and Orrin H. Pilkey, Jr. Living with the Alabama-Mississippi Shore. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1983.
Curry, Jane. The River's in My Blood. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985.
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1973.
Gold, Steven J. Refugee Communities. London: Sage Publications, 1992.
"Growth of the Seafood Industry," in the City of Biloxi Tour Guide and History, 1970-1971.
Gutierrez, Paige C. The Cultural Legacy of Biloxi's Seafood Industry. Biloxi, Mississippi, 1984.
Jordan, Rosan A."Folklore and Ethnicity: Some Theoretical Considerations," in Louisiana Folklife, ed. Nicholas R. Spitzer. Baton Rouge: Louisiana Folklife Program-Division of the Arts, 1985.
Lloyd, Timothy c. and Patrick Mullen. Lake Erie Fishermen. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990.
McKee, Jesse. Ethnicity in Contemporary America. Debuque, Iowa: Iowa University Press, 1985.
Mindel Charles H. and Robert W. Habenstein. Ethnic Families in America: Patterns and Variations. New York: Elsever, 1976, 1981.
Mullen, Patrick C.I Heard the Old Fisherman Say. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1978.
Noone, Rev. John. From Vietnam to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Biloxi, Mississippi: The Catholic Diocese of Biloxi, 1981.
Reinecke, George F. "The National and Cultural Groups of New Orleans," in Louisiana Folklife, ed Nicholas R. Spitzer. Baton Rouge: Louisiana Folklife Program/Division of the Arts, 1985.
Rutledge, Paul James. The Vietnamese Experience in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.
Sheffield, David A. and Darnell L. Nicovich. When Biloxi was Seafood Capital of the World. Biloxi, Mississippi, 1979.
The Sun Herald. "The People Within: How the Vietnamese have adapted to life on the Coast." Biloxi, MS, 1993.
__________. "Angry shrimpers want Viets to fall in line." Biloxi, MS, 21 March, 1980.
__________. "Shrimpers complain about influx of foreign fishermen." Biloxi, MS, 2 April, 1980.
__________. "Overworked' waters pose problem for officials." Biloxi, MS, 3 May, 1980.
__________. "Fishermen discuss problems at symposium." Biloxi, MS, 2 April, 1980.
__________. "Misunderstandings, differences create tension over fishing style along Mississippi Gulf Coast." Biloxi, MS, 12 June, 1983.
__________. "Gulf Coast fishing conflict: There's more to it than meets the eye." Biloxi, MS, June 1981.
Thernstrom, Stephen, ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.
"When Oysters and Shrimp became Big Business," Daily Herald. Gulfport, Mississippi reprinted from September 10, 1892.
Young, D.C. and Stephen Young. "Ethnic Mississippi 1992," in Ethnic Heritage in Mississippi, ed. Barbara Carpenter. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi,1992.
Broussard, Lou and Neville "Te-Jean". Interview by author, 28 November 1992, Biloxi, Mississippi. Tape recording.
Covacivich, Anthony "Tony Jack". Interview by author, 19 February 1993, Biloxi, Mississippi. Tape recording.
Covacivich, Katie. Interview by author, 2 January 1993, Biloxi, Mississippi. Field notes.
Kuljis, Mary. Interview by author, 17 October 1992, Biloxi, Mississippi. Tape recording.
Leleaux, Magdela.Interview by author, 10 March 1993, Biloxi, Mississippi. Tape recording.
Melancon, Andrew. Interview by author, 16 October 1992, Biloxi, Mississippi. Tape recording.
Nguyen, La. Interview by author, 10 March 1993, Biloxi, Mississippi. Tape recording.
Nguyen, Johnathon. Interview by author, 12 March 1993,Biloxi, Mississippi.
Phan, Rev. Dominic. Interview by author, 8 March 1993, Biloxi, Mississippi. Tape recording.
Schultz, Tommy. Interview by author, 22 November 1992, Biloxi, Mississippi. Tape recording.
Tran, Liem. Interview by author, 8 March 1993, Biloxi, Mississippi. Tape recording.
Trebotich, Louis and Steve. Interview by author, 24 November 1992, Biloxi, Mississippi. Tape recording.
Trieu, Jackie. Interview by author, 13 March 1993, Biloxi, Mississippi. Tape recording.
Vu, Tricia. Interview by author, 10 March 1993, Biloxi, Mississippi. Tape recording.
1. Rosan A. Jordan, "Folklore and Ethnicity: Some Theoretical Considerations," in Louisiana Folklife ed., Nicholas Spitzer (Baton Rouge: Louisiana Folklife Program/Division of the Arts, 1985), 51.
2. D.C. Young and Stephen Young, "Ethnic Mississippi 1992," in Ethnic Heritage in Mississippi ed. Barbara Carpenter (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992), 158.
3. Jordan, 51.
4."Creolization" as defined by Reinecke is the synthesis of the various cultures in the unique New Orleans melting pot as they interacted one by one with the original French, Franco-American or Afro-French population. George F. Reinecke, "The National and Cultural Groups of New Orleans," in Louisiana Folklife ed., Nicholas Spitzer, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana Folklife Program/ Division of the Arts, 1985).
5.Biloxi, Mississippi City Directory 1905.
6.Rather than distinguish between the different ethnic groups, Biloxians use the terms interchangeably. Most of them are Croatians, but they most frequently us the "Slavonian" or "Slavs" as blanket terms. This probably occurred because the name of their social club is the Slavic Benevolent Association, or the Slavonian Lodge as it is known. In this paper I use the term "Slavonian" in the same manner Biloxians do. Again, however, the majority of them are of Croatian descent.
7.Stephan Thernstrom, ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980).
8.Thernstrom, 249.
9.Peter Barhonovich, interview by H.T. Holmes, Jr., 20 June 1973, transcript, City of Biloxi, Mississippi Public Library, Oral History Collection; Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi.
10. Louis Trebotich, interview by author, 24 November 1992, Biloxi, Mississippi, tape recording.
11. Lou and Neville "Te-Jean" Broussard, interview by author 28 November 1992, Biloxi, Mississippi, tape recording.
12. Gutierrez, 6.
13. The American Naval Institute has registered this type boat under the name "Biloxi Schooner."
14.Patrick Peterson, "Tony Jack looks back on lifetime of boatbuilding" Sun Herald January 3, 1993.
15. Louis Trebotich, 24 November 1992.
16. Louis Trebotich, 24 November 1992. Barq's Rootbeer in an original Biloxi brew.
17. Katie Kovacivich. Interview by author, 2 January 1993, field notes.
18. Mary Kuljis, interview by author, 17 October 1992, tape recording.
19. Andrew Melancon, 16 October 1992.
20. Andrew Melancon, 16 October 1992.