Did you know that Wednesday, October 23, is National Canning Day? These days, many folks don’t even consider the convenience allotted to them via those tin cans that line the shelves at the local grocery store or those glass jars laden with flavorful fruit jams, savory pickles, and other preserved favorites.
All the same, it’s worth noting that canning hasn’t always been around. Yet the prominence as such a viable preservation method shouldn’t be overlooked. Maryland alone has a contested canning history of great acclaim that often goes unrecognized. That’s why, for this Flashback Friday Feature, I’ll be looking a little closer at the legacy of the once-thriving canning industry that was so crucial in shaping the state’s economic past.
The General Origins of Canning
The canning method for food preservation has its origins in Napoleonic France. Back in 1795, the government announced that 12,000 francs would be awarded to the one person who could strategize a low-cost yet effective way of preserving large portions of food for bulk military rationing.
It was in 1809 that confectioner and brewer Nicolas Appert created a clever means of applying an innovative heating process to foods contained in glass jars. His inspiration initially came from observing that food cooked in jars remained unspoiled so long as their seals did not leak.
As jarring methods became the norm, improvements to the initial process were already starting to be made regarding both safety and efficiency. Peter Durand in England revolutionized the concept of storing preserved foods in more hardy, unbreakable tin cans as an alternative to vulnerable glass jars. So, by 1810 various canning methods were largely adopted and adapted throughout many parts of the world.
Canning Comes to America
Canning has been a part of the United States framework since 1812. While the first canning operations officially took place in New York, many other states along the East Coast soon followed suit in the utilization of such beneficial preservation practices.
The regional seafood industry in these parts was already booming. Therefore, a lucrative means for sustaining freshness for packing and production was an absolute must. In Mid-Atlantic states, such as Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, and Maryland, the incorporation of innovative canning methods also proved to be a godsend for the bustling agricultural industries that so many depended on. The state of Maryland was perhaps the primary place to experience such prosperity with canning in both the seafood sector and the extensive agricultural field.
Maryland’s Merits in the Cannery Business
The canning can-do spirit thrived greatly throughout Maryland between the 19th and 20th centuries. From locations along the Eastern Shore to those based in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and beyond, in its heyday, Maryland boasted around 300 or so canneries.
Maryland’s first cannery was built within the limits of Baltimore back in 1850. In just a decade, other canneries began cropping up within the city and in other locations. Even though Baltimore was once the site of several such operations, today, you will find just one of the original surviving cannery buildings still in existence. It is the one that formerly housed Platt and Company—a bustling waterfront business known for canning oysters and produce back in 1865. Today the building serves as none other than the Baltimore Museum of Industry.
The canning craze took off even in the state’s western regions. Frederick County, for instance, emerged as a leading industrial hub for canneries in the late 1860s. It all started in 1868 when Louis McMurray opened an enterprising canning facility on Bentz and South Streets. After contracting with local farmers (and later purchasing his own land in his quest) a thriving operation emerged that called for the growing of hundreds of acres of sweet corn, peas, and tomatoes to be canned, packaged, and exported far and wide. His fresh products were shipped nationally to the West Coast states (like California) as well as internationally throughout Europe and even the Cape Horn. McMurray would go on to win many high awards and honors for his canning contributions and even patented various innovative mechanical improvements to the heating and canning process. This was a major feat as it led to more overall efficiency that all canneries benefited from. He received numerous accolades at both the 1876 Centennial Exposition and the 1878 Paris Exposition. It’s even been said that when he died in 1888, his canning operations were the largest in the world.
Cannery locations that were both widely known and not-so-widely known made up the Maryland collaborative. Even preexisting Union Mills in Carroll County, which was built in 1797, became the site of a canning operation in 1869. While more famous for its milling history, it was under the direction of Benjamin Franklin Shriver that a cannery was too established here, located onsite of the cooper’s shop.
While you’d expect seafood to be the dominating cannery operation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the records show that tomatoes were the cash crop/contested canned good of the day, with peak popularity between the late 1800s and early 1900s. Dorchester County, in particular, would go on to be the lead producer in canning tomatoes, with an impressive rate of packing more than a million cases of tomatoes. Caroline County was a close second with its bragging right of almost 750,000 cases.
Even the now-famous Phillips Seafood of Cambridge first began business as a tomato packing industry. Founded in 1902, Phillips Packing and Seafood Company was once one of the largest food processors in the United States. Famous for canning tomatoes and ketchup production, they were also known for packaging fruit, vegetables, oysters, and crabs. The business changed following World War II when the company was tasked with supplying K and C rations to U.S. troops. Later, as the canning business faded, the Phillips family shifted gears as a business. Their original packing plant was sold to Consolidated Foods in 1956.
A Canned Conclusion
From the Thomas Cannery Company of Montgomery County to booming operations in Havre de Grace, Princess Anne, and many other locations, it seemed like most parts (if not all parts) of Maryland found prominence in the once-popular canning industry. It’s even believed that by the 1880s, Baltimore alone had become the center of canning in the United States. By the 1920s, Maryland was the third-largest state in vegetable and fruit canning productions.
Maryland canneries also became major sources of employment for so many folks early on. Employee demographics ranged from freed slaves to women and even children. On a less subtle note, however, it should be known that child labor laws of the day weren’t always adhered to regarding the hiring and working practices that took place at some local canneries.
Yet, for better or worse, the essentials and efficiency that emerged in part of Maryland’s canning industry and the business of canning in general, outshine all other details. The cannery business remains an undeniably crucial inclusion to the very foundation of Maryland’s productive and ever-resourceful history.
So, as National Canning Day comes around this week, it may be worth paying a little more notice to the art, expertise, and developments that emerged as part of one of the most beneficial preservation processes ever established.