Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2024/spring/Section14/J. H. Richards (The Fisherman)

Fishing on Cottonwood Creek, circa 1915

Overview

J.H. Richards and his family lived in Athens, Georgia, during the Great Depression. Richards was interviewed by FWP Writer Grace McCune in his Athens home circa 1936-1940. At the time of the interview, Richards claimed to have turned seventy-five just the day before. According to McCune, J.H. Richards is a pseudonym used for privacy.

Biography

J.H. Richards was born in Georgia. When he was interviewed by McCune, he was living with his wife and two children; a son named Lee and a daughter (unnamed), in Athens, Georgia. Having fished his whole life, even before it was his primary source of income, he was knowledgeable on the techniques and how-tos of fishing in the waters of Georgia. It was a skill passed down to him, which he passed down also to his kids and even grandkids. Before his full-time work fishing, he worked as a Police Officer, volunteer Fireman, and power plant worker, evidently never finding himself in an abundance of money. He and his family lived humbly, happy to stay in the peaceful countryside, away from big city life. But, with the rise of cars, industry, and mass production, he found it harder and harder to not just sell his wares, but also catch them. As people found it easier to catch their own game or even pollute natural areas via cars or malpractice, Richards found it increasingly difficult to consistently make money the way he had pre-cars and roads. He had issues with laws and licensing that were placed as fishing became more prominent to the general public, barring him from using old trapping techniques and methods that had served him well before. Because of lack of information, more info on his later life and death is unable to be found.

Early Life

Richards described his early life in very simple description, alluding to it only as a youth spent fishing with his father while growing up in Georgia and the nearby counties of Athens. His birthplace is unspecified in Georgia. Due to Richards' pseudonym, more information on his early life is unattainable at this time.

Eastman Johnson (American, 1824–1906) - Boy Fishing - Cleveland Museum of Art

Family Life

Richards has a wife (only referenced as Mrs. Richards), a son named Lee, and a daughter (unnamed). Very dedicated to his family, he did all he could to support them, despite the difficulty in finding work or making money during the time period. Despite their poverty, they enjoyed their humble life in the countryside, and lived comfortably enough for their ideals.

Work Life

Richards spent his early part of his work life working as a volunteer firefighter, alongside making extra money by catching and selling fish and game. After serving as a firefighter for most of his life, he took a position on the police force in Athens and also began working at a waterworks plant in town. Once the police force began to require driving skills for the job, he quit, and started fishing full time. He also maintained some simple gardening and farm animals along with his family as a means of making extra money, selling fish and produce to campers visiting Athens.

Social Context

Negative Effects of Commercialization on Fishermen

The issue of big industries versus small fisherman was very prevalent in the 1930s. The rise of commercialization in fishing gave way as big businesses bought and took the market space of smaller businesses and family-owned businesses, and it became easier to mass import fish from state to state. For smaller fisherman, this became competition for them, as people began to choose the cheaper, quicker delivered fish over the fresh yet high priced fish that fishermen would sell to their communities. "Frustrated by regulations and low prices, some fishermen have given up...[on fishing]"(Tibbetts, 4). As commercialization grew, more legislation was placed on fishing, and laws were passed in order to keep the boom of the fishing industry in check. These new licensing laws placed new expectations of fishermen that had never previously dealt with. Some of the first treaties were the product of the 1923 Halibut Commission Convention, one of them being the concept of having specific 'seasons' for different fish and game.

Rural Poverty in the South

In the time during and after the Great Depression, the rural areas of the Southern United States had an especially hard time recovering from the effects of the economic crash. The rural South depended significantly on agriculture, and the redistribution of work and income resulted in the value of farmland and agricultural products declining heavily. Farming, fishing, animal production, forestry, hunting, and more all experienced exponential losses in profit, leading to farmers and those working in positions of agriculture to abandon their practice and move to careers more supportive and lucrative for the sake of survival. The amount of people in rural areas employed at white-color or semi-skilled professions increased by around 40 percent at the time, and blue-collar workers largely replaced farmers and agricultural workers.

The Expansion of Roads and Cars

The system of bigger, more improved roads and even interstates originates in the 1930s, during the recovery period of the Great Depression. Because people could easily get from place to place with the use of cars, which were being improved heavily in the 30s, more people could travel out to rural areas or take long trips in and out of cities or towns. Not only did this cause issues for the people who lived in small rural towns being bombarded by tourism, but it also took business and population away from rural and urban areas and melded them into the new suburban regions. Since people could commute, they moved out to the middle grounds of the suburbs in order to get the best of both city life and rural life. It began with the 1939 congressional planning document known as Toll Roads and Free Roads.

References

• Folder 238: McCune, Hall, Harris (Interviewers): The Fishermen :: Federal Writers Project Papers. https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/03709/id/802.  Accessed 20 Feb. 2024.

• John H. Tibbetts: scsgc. “Hanging in the Balance: America’s Fishing Industry.” S.C. Sea Grant Consortium, June 16, 2004. https://www.scseagrant.org/hanging-in-the-balance-americas-fishing-industry/.

• Stromberg, Joseph. “Highways Gutted American Cities. So Why Did They Build Them?” Vox, May 14, 2015. https://www.vox.com/2015/5/14/8605917/highways-interstate-cities-history.

• William F. Royce/Fisheries, NOAA. “Historical Development of Fisheries Science and Management | NOAA Fisheries.” NOAA, January 26, 2023. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/new-england-mid-atlantic/about-us/historical-development-fisheries-science-and-management.

• Burchinal, Lee G., and Hilda Siff. “Rural Poverty.” Journal of Marriage and Family 26, no. 4 (1964): 399–405. doi:10.2307/349343 https://www.jstor.org/stable/349343

• Madsen, Jakob B. “Agricultural Crises and the International Transmission of the Great Depression.” The Journal of Economic History 61, no. 2 (2001): 327–65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2698023.