A New Deal for Lobsters

 
Above: Photo and caption from: Betty and Ernest K. Lindley, A New Deal for Youth: The Story of the National Youth Administration, New York: The Viking Press, 1938. Used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

New Deal hatcheries

There were many fish hatchery projects carried out by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the National Youth Administration (NYA), and other New Deal-era agencies. In the northeast, this included projects to propagate America's lobsters. In 1939, for example, the WPA approved funds for a new lobster hatchery in Noanck, Connecticut. An older facility had been destroyed by the 1938 New England Hurricane ("Lobster Hatchery at Noanck To Be Reopened Soon," Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut), April 12, 1939, p. 20).

Above: This is likely the 1939 WPA-built lobster hatchery, now used by the Noanck Aquaculture Cooperative. See, "The Cooperative – NY & CT, Connecticut" (accessed January 4, 2022). Unknown photographer, photo used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: Part of a full-page story in the Lincoln Sunday Journal and Star (Lincoln, Nebraska), October 24, 1937, p. 48. The article reports: "According to the Federal Bureau of Fisheries, whose job it is to watch over the great marine resources of the United States, the lobster, enjoyed by millions of seafood lovers, is being so depleted that there is definite reason to believe that before long this shellfish will no longer be available as an important item on the menu of the people of the United States. Alarmed at the possibility of facing such a condition, the United States Government and the Maine Sea and Shore Fisheries recently equipped and put into high-speed operation the largest lobster hatchery in America" (in Boothbay Harbor, Maine). Image above courtesy of newspapers.com, and used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: "Lobsterman," an artwork by George Shellhase, created while he was in the New Deal's Section of Fine Arts, 1940. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.