Letters of Lester J. Burbidge

Collection

Identifier: MS 4-22-3

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Holograph letters written to his family in Chicago during the summer of 1928 while he was working at the New England Fish Company on Knight Island, Alaska; the letters describe the voyage to Knight Island, the beauty of Alaska, his fellow laborers (mostly Filipinos and Japanese), and his experiences in the salmon canning industry -- from pitching the fish off the boats to the removal of the canned fish from the retort.

Dates

1928

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open to research.

Conditions Governing Use

Requests for permission to publish material from the collection must be discussed with the Librarian. Photocopying does not constitute permission to publish.

Biographical / Historical

While a student at Denison University, Granville, Ohio, he and a fraternity brother shipped out of Seattle on the Alaskan steamer "Yukon" as contract laborers for the New England Fish Co. salmon cannery; after graduation he taught and coached in Ohio schools, in 1948 he went into the Regular Army, Military Police Corps, after retirement from the military, he returned to teaching and administrative positions in California's public education system, he died Jan. 25, 1994.