Seafood Worker

The seafood industry throughout history has been an important part of the economy in both Britain and the USA. During the industrial revolution oysters were canned in factories but first they needed to be taken out if their shells. This is the job of an oyster shucker. Oyster shuckers would use a sharp knife and small pieces of cloth that covered part of their knife hand to cut the oysters from their shells after they had been steamed.  Many children did not have shoes and so climbing over these sharp shells barefoot.

Children would go to the factories early in the morning and then leave to go to school and return after their classes to finish the day working in the factory. At fourteen children would get a work card that made it legal for them to work in the factories, much like a modern work permit. Often children under the legal working age were forced to leave the factory if they were discovered by an investigator, for this reason many children hid whenever an investigator visited the cannery.