From Sardineland to Cannery Row: The History of Sardine Fishing and Canning in the United States
Few foods have played such an outsized role in American coastal history as the humble sardine. For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, sardines were not merely a pantry staple. They were the foundation of entire coastal economies, the reason for the creation of fishing ports and canneries, a source of employment for generations of families, an important wartime food, and eventually the subject of one of America's most spectacular fishery collapses.
The American sardine industry was unusual because the fish sold as "sardines" were not necessarily the same species from one coast to another. In Maine, the product was primarily the Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus), particularly small herring marketed commercially as sardines. On the Pacific coast, the industry was built around the Pacific sardine or California pilchard (Sardinops sagax). Both fisheries became enormous, but they followed markedly different historical trajectories.
The story also illustrates an important distinction between the American industry and the great sardine-producing regions of Europe, North Africa and the western Pacific. In Portugal and Morocco, for example, the European pilchard (Sardina pilchardus) remains an important commercial fish and canning resource. In Japan and other western Pacific countries, several species of sardine and sardine-like fishes have supported enormous fisheries. The United States, by contrast, experienced the rise and collapse of two major regional industries and ultimately ceased to have a domestic sardine-canning industry altogether.
What, Exactly, Is a "Sardine"?
The word sardine is as much a commercial category as a biological one.
The modern international Codex standard recognizes a surprisingly broad group of sardine and sardine-type fishes, including Sardina pilchardus, Clupea harengus, Sardinops melanostictus, Sardinops sagax, several Sardinella species and others.
This explains why a can labeled "sardines" does not necessarily contain the species most people associate with the name.
The American industry historically illustrates the point perfectly:
| Region | Principal fish marketed as sardines |
|---|---|
| Maine | Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) |
| New Brunswick/Nova Scotia | Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) |
| California | Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) |
| Portugal | European pilchard (Sardina pilchardus) |
| Morocco | Primarily European pilchard (Sardina pilchardus) |
| Japan/western Pacific | Japanese sardine (Sardinops melanostictus) and related clupeids |
| Other global producing regions | Various Sardinella, Sardinops, Clupea and related species |
The U.S. government itself historically recognized this distinction. A federal fisheries publication described Maine's industry as being based on small Atlantic herring while California's was based on the Pacific pilchard.
That distinction is important when comparing American sardines with the products of Portugal, Morocco or Japan.
The Beginnings: Sardines Before Industrial Canning
Small schooling fish were being harvested on the Atlantic coast long before the modern sardine industry. Atlantic herring were abundant in the Gulf of Maine and Bay of Fundy and were traditionally salted, smoked, pickled, dried or used as bait and fertilizer.
What changed in the nineteenth century was preservation technology and access to markets.
The development of commercially practical tin cans transformed small fish from a highly perishable local commodity into a standardized product capable of being shipped hundreds or thousands of miles.
The combination was extraordinarily powerful: abundant schooling fish + inexpensive labor + canning technology + railroads + steamships + expanding urban markets = the sardine industry.
The American industry therefore developed not simply because sardines were abundant, but because entrepreneurs discovered that an inexpensive, nutritious fish could be converted into a durable manufactured food.
Maine: America's Original Sardineland
The first great American sardine industry developed along the coast of Maine and across the Bay of Fundy into New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
The industry's earliest major center was Downeast Maine, particularly Eastport and nearby Lubec.
By the late nineteenth century, Eastport had become the center of a rapidly expanding industry. Contemporary accounts describe approximately two dozen factories in the immediate region by the late 1870s and 1880s, with Eastport containing the largest concentration. Fish were headed and cleaned, brined, dried, fried in oil and packed into tin cans. The finished cases were shipped to major commercial centers including New York and Boston.
The business quickly spread westward along the Maine coast.
Important centers included:
- Eastport
- Lubec
- Machiasport
- Robbinston
- Milbridge
- Belfast
- Prospect Harbor
- Bath
- plus numerous smaller fishing villages and coves
At its height, Maine had as many as 75 sardine canneries operating along its coast.
The industry was so pervasive that "sardine" became almost synonymous with Maine's coastal economy.
The fish were herring
One of the great historical curiosities of Maine's industry is that the "Maine sardine" was actually Atlantic herring. Small herring were particularly valuable because their size made them convenient for packing whole into cans. They could be prepared in oil, mustard, tomato sauce and other preparations.
The commercial name "sardine" helped Maine producers compete with established European sardine products.
The Maine Production System
The Maine sardine industry developed into a remarkably integrated coastal manufacturing system.
Fishing boats delivered their catches directly to waterfront canneries. Fish were unloaded, sorted, headed and processed, while cannery workers prepared thousands of individual cans.
Women became particularly important to the industry as packers and cutters. Smithsonian documentation of Maine canneries describes women working at packing tables while fish were cooked, packed, sealed and sterilized before being shipped. This created an unusual economic division of labor:
- Men: fishing, boat operation, unloading and heavy industrial work.
- Women: cutting, packing and other cannery operations.
The cannery therefore became an economic institution affecting entire communities, not simply a factory. At peak periods, whole families were economically connected to the sardine trade.
Boston and New York: The Commercial Gateways
The fish were caught in remote coastal communities, but the economic center of the business was much farther away.
Maine producers shipped canned sardines to Boston and New York, where wholesalers, distributors and retailers connected the product to the national market. Historical accounts specifically document cases moving from Maine factories to New York and Boston. New York was particularly important because it was the country's largest commercial and population center.
The sardine therefore participated in a much larger transformation in American food culture: the development of a national market in standardized, packaged foods. A person living in the Midwest or West could purchase a can of fish produced in a tiny Maine coastal village.
That was revolutionary.
War Makes Sardines a Strategic Food
The American sardine industry's growth was repeatedly accelerated by war. Canned fish had several qualities that made it exceptionally useful to military planners:
- It did not require refrigeration.
- It was compact.
- It was relatively inexpensive.
- It provided protein and fat.
- It could be stored for long periods.
- It could be transported great distances.
World War I dramatically increased demand for canned foods. World War II did the same thing on an even larger scale.
Maine's canneries supplied food for American troops, while wartime demand helped keep factories and fishing communities economically active. NOAA's historical collection notes that Maine sardine canneries supplied American troops during both World Wars.
The wartime economy also helped establish canned sardines as an ordinary American pantry food rather than simply a regional specialty.
California: The Rise of Cannery Row
While Maine dominated the Atlantic sardine business, a second American sardine empire was developing on the Pacific coast.
The California industry began commercially in the late nineteenth century. The first successful Pacific Coast sardine cannery was established at San Pedro in 1896.
The industry subsequently expanded northward, especially to:
- San Pedro/Los Angeles
- Monterey
- San Francisco
- Ventura
- other California ports
The critical species was the Pacific sardine, Sardinops sagax.
The fishery was fundamentally different from Maine's herring fishery. Pacific sardines formed enormous migratory schools associated with the productive California Current ecosystem.
And nowhere did the fish become more important than Monterey.
Monterey and the Birth of Cannery Row
Monterey's industrial fishery was already developing at the beginning of the twentieth century, but sardines transformed it.
The first Monterey cannery was established in 1902. The Pacific Fish Company followed on Ocean View Avenue in 1908, and other factories soon crowded the waterfront.
The combination of:
- abundant sardines,
- improved purse-seine and other fishing technology,
- mechanized processing,
- refrigeration,
- rail transportation,
- expanding domestic markets,
- and World War I demand
produced explosive growth.
By 1918, Monterey's canneries were producing more than 1.4 million cases of sardines.
The waterfront became known as Cannery Row.
By the early 1940s, more than two dozen canneries and reduction plants operated there, while the broader California sardine industry included more than 100 canneries and reduction plants from San Francisco to San Diego. Monterey was eventually promoted as the "Sardine Capital of the World."
Cannery Row Was More Than a Canning District
The Monterey sardine industry produced an entire industrial society. Thousands of workers depended upon the fishery. Cannery workers included immigrants and families from diverse ethnic backgrounds, including Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese and Hispanic communities.
The working conditions could be brutal. The fish arrived according to the rhythms of the ocean rather than a conventional factory schedule. Workers might be summoned by cannery whistles when the fishing fleet returned, and production continued until the catch was processed. During peak periods, shifts could be extraordinarily long.
The result was a distinctive coastal culture in which fishing boats, canneries, laborers, truckers, boat builders, wholesalers and merchants all depended upon the same biological resource.
John Steinbeck immortalized this world in Cannery Row, published in 1945. The novel appeared at almost exactly the moment when the industry was approaching its historic collapse.
Sardines Were Not Always Put Into Cans
An important feature of the American industry was the existence of a reduction industry alongside the food-canning business.
When sardines were too small, damaged, plentiful or otherwise unsuitable for premium human-food packing, they could be converted into:
- fish meal,
- fish oil,
- fertilizer,
- animal feed,
- industrial products.
This allowed canneries to remain economically viable even when the market for canned sardines was weak.
During the Depression, for example, the Monterey industry continued to process large quantities of sardines into meal and other products. This was both a strength and a weakness. It provided a market for virtually the entire catch, but it also encouraged the industry to maximize fishing effort.
The Collapse of the California Sardine Fishery
The Monterey sardine collapse is one of the most famous events in American fisheries history.
The fishery reached extraordinary production levels during World War II. Then the sardines abruptly became scarce. The catch illustrates the magnitude of the collapse:
- 1946: approximately 142,000 tons
- 1947: approximately 27,000 tons
The fishery subsequently deteriorated to the point that Monterey's canneries could no longer depend upon sardines. By the late 1950s, the sardines had essentially disappeared from the Monterey fishery.
What caused the collapse?
The answer is more complicated than simply "overfishing." Scientists and historians have debated two major explanations:
- Excessive fishing pressure
- Natural environmental and climatic cycles
Modern research strongly supports the importance of both. NOAA notes that overfishing and environmental changes have long been the two principal explanations considered for the collapse.
Sediment studies have subsequently demonstrated that sardine populations have undergone major natural fluctuations for centuries, alternating with periods when anchovies were more abundant.
The best historical interpretation is therefore not that overfishing was irrelevant, nor that climate alone destroyed the industry. Rather, heavy fishing pressure encountered a naturally fluctuating ecosystem at precisely the wrong time.
The industry had been built on the assumption that extraordinary abundance was permanent. It was not.
The End of Cannery Row
As the sardines disappeared, Monterey's industrial economy unraveled. Some canneries closed immediately. Others attempted to survive by processing:
- tuna,
- anchovies,
- mackerel,
- squid,
- and other seafood.
The Hovden cannery survived until 1973, eventually processing squid rather than sardines.
The physical remains of the industry eventually became something very different: a tourist attraction.
Cannery Row, once a noisy industrial fish-processing district, became one of California's best-known historic waterfront destinations.
The irony is striking.
The sardine industry created Cannery Row; the collapse of the sardine industry ultimately created modern Cannery Row as a tourism district.
Maine's Long Decline
Maine's industry followed a slower and more complicated path. Unlike California's spectacular ecological collapse, Maine's sardine industry declined over decades. Several factors converged.
Resource pressure
Heavy fishing pressure affected the availability and economics of small herring.
Changing consumer habits
The American consumer increasingly had access to:
- fresh and frozen seafood,
- refrigerated foods,
- inexpensive meat,
- convenience foods,
- microwaveable products,
- and eventually an enormous variety of packaged foods.
Refrigeration fundamentally weakened the competitive advantage that canned fish once possessed. Maine historical researchers identify changing tastes and the spread of refrigerators, coolers and microwaves as contributors to the industry's decline.
Labor and manufacturing economics
Canning was labor intensive. As American manufacturing costs increased, producers increasingly confronted competition from lower-cost production elsewhere.
Consolidation
The industry also became increasingly concentrated in fewer corporate hands.
Connors Bros., and subsequently Bumble Bee, acquired several Maine operations. The remaining factories became increasingly difficult to operate economically.
The Last American Sardine Cannery
By the beginning of the twenty-first century, only a remnant of the Maine industry survived. The final U.S. sardine cannery was Stinson Seafood in Prospect Harbor, Maine. The plant had operated for more than a century. It closed in April 2010.
With that closure, the United States effectively lost its domestic sardine-canning industry. NOAA describes the Prospect Harbor plant as the last sardine cannery in the country.
This is one of the more remarkable facts in American seafood history: A country that once possessed dozens of sardine canneries and two enormous sardine-fishing industries no longer has a domestic sardine cannery.
The United States still catches sardines and herring, but the industrial system that once converted those fish into mass-market canned sardines has largely disappeared.
What Happened to the American Sardine Fishery?
The distinction between fishing and canning is important. The United States did not stop having sardines simply because it stopped canning them.
Pacific sardines still inhabit the West Coast, but the fishery has been subject to severe management restrictions. NOAA currently lists commercial fishing for Pacific sardines as prohibited because the stock is below its precautionary threshold. The fishery has been closed since 2015.
Atlantic herring likewise remain commercially harvested in the Northeast and can still be sold as sardines. NOAA reports that U.S. and Canadian fisheries continue to harvest Atlantic herring, which is sold frozen, salted and canned as sardines.
The difference is that the industrial infrastructure and economics of domestic sardine canning are gone.
Canada's Closely Related Sardine Industry
The Canadian experience is particularly interesting because it developed directly alongside Maine's. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia possessed the same basic resource: Atlantic herring.
The Bay of Fundy became an important center of sardine fishing and processing. Canadian sardines competed directly with Maine products and European canned fish.
Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans describes more than a century of commercial herring fishing in the Maritimes and specifically identifies the pre-1960s period as the era of the traditional Bay of Fundy cannery industry and canned sardine production.
In the 1950s, the geographic concentration was striking. Historical accounts identify 52 sardine factories in Maine and 21 in New Brunswick.
Canada therefore shared America's basic sardine industry:
Atlantic herring → coastal fishing → small canneries → canned "sardines" → North American markets.
But Canadian producers eventually faced many of the same problems as Maine:
- changing consumer tastes,
- resource limitations,
- competition from imported sardines,
- rising production costs,
- consolidation,
- and diversification toward other herring products.
By the 1960s, Canadian Atlantic herring was increasingly diverted toward fish meal and other markets.
Portugal: A Different Sardine Tradition
Portugal represents a fundamentally different model.
Portuguese sardine culture is based primarily on the European pilchard, Sardina pilchardus. The species is indigenous to the eastern Atlantic and forms the basis of a long-established fishing and food culture.
Portuguese canning developed into a major national industry rather than merely a regional North American one.
Historically important centers included:
- Matosinhos
- Porto
- Setúbal
- Portimão
- Peniche
- Figueira da Foz
- other Eastern Atlantic coastal communities
Portugal's traditional canned-fish industry has included sardines, tuna and other seafood. FAO describes sardines and tuna as the principal canned products, with sardines historically representing a substantial share of production.
The Portuguese sardine industry also differs culturally from the former American industry.
In the United States, sardines became associated with inexpensive shelf-stable food. In Portugal, sardines became part of the national culinary identity.
Grilled fresh sardines, canned sardines, festivals and preserved-fish traditions all coexist.
The canned product consequently occupies a different position in the culture.
Portugal's Modern Challenge
Portugal has not escaped the biological and economic problems facing sardine fisheries.
The Iberian sardine stock is shared with Spain and is managed through coordinated scientific and regulatory measures. Portugal has imposed catch limits and temporary closures in response to changes in the stock.
In 2026, Portugal's government emphasized both the economic importance of the fishery and the restrictions required to maintain it, with Portugal receiving a substantial share of the jointly managed Iberian catch. Thus Portugal demonstrates a crucial difference from the historical U.S. experience:
The sardine fishery remains an active component of the national economy, but increasingly under explicit biological management.
Morocco: Sardines as an Industrial Export Commodity
Morocco is another very different case. The country's Atlantic coast is extraordinarily productive because of the influence of the Canary Current and coastal upwelling.
Morocco's sardine fishery is based heavily on European pilchard (Sardina pilchardus), although the broader regional fishery includes other small pelagic species.
The major sardine ports include:
- Agadir
- Safi
- Essaouira
FAO identifies Agadir as the most important Moroccan sardine port and describes a large purse-seine fleet operating from these centers. The Moroccan industry became especially important because it combined: large natural fish resources + purse-seine fishing + industrial canning + export markets.
Processing plants became heavily concentrated in the Safi–Agadir region.
This makes Morocco perhaps the clearest contrast with the post-2010 United States.
Where America's sardine canning infrastructure disappeared, Morocco retained a substantial industrial processing sector connected directly to a large commercial fishery.
Japan and the Western Pacific
The western Pacific provides yet another model.
Japan has historically possessed enormous fisheries for small pelagic fishes, particularly sardines and sardine-like species.
The principal Japanese sardine is the Japanese sardine, Sardinops melanostictus. Like the Pacific sardine of California, the Japanese sardine is highly migratory and subject to major natural population fluctuations.
This is an important parallel. The California and Japanese fisheries demonstrate that sardine abundance can change dramatically over relatively short periods because sardine populations respond strongly to oceanographic conditions.
The difference is that the western Pacific developed a much broader market for small pelagic fish. Sardines and related species have been used for:
- human consumption,
- canning,
- drying,
- fish meal,
- fish oil,
- bait,
- and other products.
The western Pacific seafood economy therefore did not depend upon canned sardines alone. That diversification provided a buffer against changes in the canned-food market.
The Global Sardine Trade
By the twentieth century, the United States was not operating in isolation. American consumers encountered sardines from a growing number of countries.
Imported canned sardines came from places such as:
- Portugal
- Norway
- Canada
- Morocco
- South Africa
- Japan
- Spain
- France
- and other producing countries.
A 1960s international Codex discussion illustrates how globalized the market had already become. U.S. imports included Portuguese, Norwegian and Canadian sardines, among others, while Maine sardines were exported as well.
This created an increasingly competitive international market. And eventually, the economics favored countries that could combine: abundant fish + inexpensive labor + efficient canning + access to export markets.
That combination became increasingly difficult for American producers to maintain.
Why the U.S. Industry Disappeared While Others Survived
The decline of American sardine canning cannot be attributed to one cause. It was the result of several structural changes occurring simultaneously.
1. The resource became less reliable
California's sardine population collapsed spectacularly. Maine's herring resource and the economics of harvesting small fish also changed.
2. American labor became expensive
Canning was historically dependent upon large numbers of workers performing repetitive manual operations.
3. Refrigeration changed the food system
The original advantage of canned sardines was their ability to preserve protein without refrigeration. As household refrigeration became universal, that advantage diminished.
4. American consumers diversified
Sardines faced competition from:
- tuna,
- salmon,
- frozen seafood,
- poultry,
- meat,
- prepared foods,
- and, eventually, enormous varieties of convenience foods.
5. International competition increased
Countries with lower production costs could manufacture canned fish more competitively.
6. Industry consolidation reduced the number of plants
Instead of dozens of independent family and regional operations, the American industry became concentrated in fewer corporate organizations.
7. Fish could be more valuable elsewhere
Herring and sardines could be sold for bait, fish meal, fish oil and other purposes.
8. Environmental management changed the economics
Modern fisheries management deliberately limits catch when stocks decline. That is biologically desirable, but it can make a marginal cannery economically impossible to operate.
The final Stinson closure illustrates this perfectly: the company cited reduced federal herring catch limits as a major factor in the plant's lack of economic viability.
The Great American Sardine Centers
The geography of the American sardine industry can be summarized as two major systems.
Atlantic System
Primary fishing and processing centers:
- Eastport, Maine
- Lubec, Maine
- Downeast Maine
- Belfast, Maine
- Penobscot Bay
- Prospect Harbor, Maine
- New Brunswick
- Nova Scotia
Commercial distribution:
- Boston
- New York
- eventually, nationwide U.S. markets
Principal species:
Clupea harengus — Atlantic herring
Pacific System
Primary centers:
- San Pedro
- Los Angeles/Terminal Island
- Ventura
- Monterey
- San Francisco
- Columbia River ports
- parts of the Pacific Northwest
Commercial distribution:
- West Coast markets
- national U.S. markets
- export markets
Principal species:
Sardinops sagax — Pacific sardine
NOAA continues to identify San Pedro/Terminal Island, Ventura, Monterey and Moss Landing, along with Astoria and Westport, as major West Coast ports for coastal pelagic species.
A Tale of Two American Sardine Industries
The Maine and California stories are worth comparing directly.
| Characteristic | Maine | California |
|---|---|---|
| Principal fish | Atlantic herring | Pacific sardine |
| Scientific name | Clupea harengus | Sardinops sagax |
| Major era | Late 1800s–20th century | 1890s–1950s |
| Major center | Eastport/Lubec and coastal Maine | Monterey/San Pedro |
| Major market | U.S. domestic market | Domestic + export |
| Wartime importance | Very high | Very high |
| Canning workforce | Large, heavily female packing workforce | Large, ethnically diverse workforce |
| Reduction industry | Important | Extremely important |
| Peak problem | Long economic decline | Sudden fishery collapse |
| Last U.S. sardine cannery | Prospect Harbor, 2010 | Industry essentially gone by mid-century |
| Principal cause of decline | Economic, market, resource and industry changes | Resource collapse + fishing pressure + environmental variability |
The contrast is striking.
- California's sardine industry died quickly because its fish disappeared.
- Maine's sardine industry died slowly because its entire economic model became obsolete.
The Sardine and the American Working Waterfront
The most important legacy of the American sardine industry may not be the cans themselves. It is the communities that grew around them.
Eastport, Lubec, Belfast and Prospect Harbor were shaped by sardines. Monterey was transformed by sardines.
- Thousands of workers learned specialized skills in the canneries.
- Fishing families built their lives around seasonal runs.
- Women became an essential part of industrial seafood production.
- Immigrant communities established themselves in fishing and processing centers.
- Railroads and wholesalers expanded to move the product.
- Retailers across America learned to sell an inexpensive, nutritious, shelf-stable fish.
The sardine was therefore part of the larger story of American industrialization.
From Industrial Food to Culinary Artifact
There is also a cultural irony in the decline. When sardines were being canned by the millions, they were generally considered inexpensive food. Today, high-quality imported sardines can be marketed as specialty foods.
Portuguese conservas, Spanish sardines, Moroccan sardines and premium European tins are increasingly treated as culinary products rather than emergency pantry provisions.
Meanwhile, the American sardine industry has become a subject of nostalgia.
Cannery Row is now a tourist destination.
Maine preserves sardine museums, artifacts and memories.
The former Stinson plant survives as a reminder of the industry.
The enormous "Big Jim" sardine billboard, originally created as an advertisement for Maine's sardine industry, has itself become a historic artifact.
The Global Lesson
The history of American sardines is ultimately not a story about one fish. It is a story about industrialization, globalization, ecology and changing food culture. The same basic biological phenomenon produced very different economic outcomes around the world.
California: Enormous sardine schools produced Cannery Row—and their disappearance destroyed the industry.
Maine: Abundant herring supported dozens of factories and entire coastal communities before refrigeration, consumer tastes, corporate consolidation and changing economics gradually undermined the business.
Canada: A related herring industry developed alongside Maine and competed directly with it.
Portugal: The European pilchard became part of a national culinary tradition and remains an important commercial fishery.
Morocco: Sardines became the foundation of a major export-oriented fishing and canning sector.
Japan and the western Pacific: Sardines became one component of an enormous and diversified small-pelagic fish economy.
The difference is therefore not simply whether sardines were abundant.
It was whether a society could continually reconcile fish abundance, fishing technology, processing costs, labor, consumer demand, international competition and fisheries management.
America eventually could not.
The Sardine's Strange American Afterlife
There is perhaps no better symbol of this transformation than the fact that "sardine" remains a familiar American food even though America no longer has a domestic sardine-canning industry.
The United States continues to import canned sardines from the very countries whose products once competed with Maine and California.
At the same time, the American fishing industry continues to harvest the species that once supplied the country's canneries.
The fish survived. The industry did not. That distinction is central to understanding the history of American sardines.
The rise of the American sardine industry required much more than an abundance of small fish. It required a particular combination of technology, labor, transportation, markets and culture. When those conditions changed—and when the fish themselves became less predictable—the industrial system built around them could not survive.
The sardine can consequently represents something larger than preserved seafood.
It is a small metal record of the transformation of the American waterfront: from localized fishing villages to industrial fishing ports, from family-owned canneries to consolidated corporations, from wartime pantry staple to imported specialty food, and ultimately from a living industry to a piece of maritime history.
And nowhere is that transformation more visible than in the two places that once defined American sardines: Maine's Sardineland and California's Cannery Row.