It’s not uncommon for guests to ask staff members at the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum about donating items to the Museum’s collection. Currently, the Museum holds over 25,000 items in its collection including items ranging from tools used by Lighthouse keepers to a Coast Guard uniform from World War II. Recently, the Museum received a token used in the shrimping industry. Ed Long, who is the co-author of the book Shrimp Boat City and has gifted many artifacts from the shrimping industry to the Museum, donated the Shrimp Nickel from the Anthony Poli Fish House.
Long before direct deposit, workers in the shrimp houses weren’t paid by the hour or drew a salary. Like other industries at the time, the owners of the shrimp houses paid workers for production, giving tokens based upon the 12, 14 or 16 quart pail that was filled with processed shrimp. At a time when employers lacked the cash on hand to pay workers, these tokens were used to purchase necessities at local stores and company stores.
Photos Above: front and back images of the shrimping industry token from Anthony Poli’s shrimp house.
Known as Shrimp Nickels, these tokens became a form of local currency issued by the owners of the shrimp houses. These tokens were used to advance wages before pay day and could be redeemed with merchants that had contracted with the shrimp houses. Some of the shrimp houses owned their own company stores where workers could purchase goods using these tokens. In effect, the tokens created a self-contained economy controlled by the shrimping families.
In northeast Florida, one prominent shrimp house owner, Sollectito Salvador, brought the use of Shrimp Nickels to St. Augustine. Known as Mike, Salvador first began shrimping in Fernandina Beach, Florida, to the north of St. Augustine, and then later moved to St. Augustine with his family. Other families also participating in building St. Augustine’s shrimping industry. Families with last names like Versaggi and Poli helped to expand the industry and attract a vibrant boatbuilding industry to the city. Harry Xynides arrived in Florida in 1939 from New York City and began building both pleasure craft and shrimp boats. The rest, as they say, is history.
The term “Shrimp Nickel” originated in Biloxi, Mississippi, along the Gulf Coast where you can still find shrimp boats today. Tokens came in various forms including wood, brass and aluminum. Workers often kept their tokens in the front pockets of their clothing as they peeled and processed the shrimp. Over time, shrimp juice, containing copper, would seep through their clothing and stain and corrode the metal tokens, giving them their distinctive appearance, and their name.
Many of the shrimp houses and their company stores took advantage of the workers, using a mix of price gouging on goods sold in the stores and high interest rates when workers bought items on credit. Ed Long and descendants of the shrimping families maintain that these practices did not exist in St. Augustine. The shrimp houses here did not operate company stores like other locations so workers used their tokens in local shops and merchants in the place of currency. However, not all merchants in town accepted the tokens meaning that workers were somewhat limited in where they could use the tokens. Remember though that during this time when shrimping was thriving, St. Augustine was a much smaller town, and the shrimp houses kept many restaurants supplied with the popular seafood.
Ultimately, the use of Shrimp Nickels ended when the federal government established new labor laws to protect all workers from predatory practices across the country. These changes addressed the main complaints from workers including how the companies took advantage of workers. Company stores were common in many industries other than shrimping and often inflated prices of items sold and charged high interest rates when workers purchased items on credit; both reduced the ability of workers to pay off their debt to the company. The reforms of the federal government protected workers from these predatory practices and ushered in more standardized wage systems.
To learn more about St. Augustine’s shrimping industry, please visit the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum and the Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy exhibit located on the second floor of the Keepers’ House. The Museum is open from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM every day except Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. Access to the shrimping industry exhibit is included at no additional cost with general admission.
Above: Shrimp Boat City details the history and legacy of the shrimping industry in St. Augustine. The book is available through the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum by clicking here. Members save an additional 20% off the regular price.
Photos Below: Various images of the shrimping industry in St. Augustine. All photos are from the Florida Memory collection.
Above: Shrimp boats docked in St. Augustine in 1936 or 1937. Mike Salvador’s seafood packing building marked by a sign is in the background. That sign is part of the Museum’s collection and appears on site. Photo courtesy of Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs DivisionInterested in donating an item to the Museum’s collection? Please do not bring items for donation to the Museum without first speaking with the Collection Manager. Each item in our collection requires time, funding and resources to properly catalog, preserve and store. As a result, each item must be thoughtfully evaluated to ensure it aligns with the Museum’s mission and collection needs. If you have an item that you would like to donate, please contact Cynthia Rountree, Collections Manager, at crountree@staugustinelighthouse.org. Please include a detailed description as well as photographs in your email.