On the right is the gate that my Father went though, on his way to work, for 35 years.

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Bivalve, NJ

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When I was living in Philly in 1999, I visited my hometown, Millville, NJ, a  few times to do research at the local library about the oyster industry and the lives of black oyster shuckers in South Jersey. Most of the shuckers migrated up from Virginia and Maryland in the nineteen twenties when the shucking houses opened in Bivalve and Shellpile. It has always been a very segregated scene, occupationally and socially, from what I can tell. Previous to this, there were hundreds of oyster schooners based out of the Maurice River Cove. With the modernization of the fleet, the days of oyster schooners were gone, sails were replaced with diesel engines and dredging was mechanized. Many (mostly white) workers lost their jobs at the same time that the oyster packing industry grew, requiring shuckers to prepare the oysters for packing. From what I have read this contributed to racial tension, and the Klan was supposedly quite active in South Jersey in the 20's and 30's, allegedly dona...
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Slide Show of Bivalve and Shellpile, NJ

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