Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Spring/105/Section 56/Master Cain

Overview

Shrimp boat captain E.J Cain, more commonly referred to as “Master Cain” was interviewed on October 14, 1938 by Lawrence Evans In association with the federal writers projects of the 1930’s.

Biography

Born E.J. Cain, “Master Cain” as he was widely known, lived in Bayou La Batre Alabama since birth. At the time of his interview with Lawrence Evans in 1938, Cain had been working in the shrimping industry for over thirty-five years. When he first entered the business at the age of eighteen, Cain and his new wife were one of only one hundred shrimping families in the area, a number that would greatly increase later in Cain’s life.  Cain was the proud owner and captain of his own shrimping vessel, The Grover Cleveland, along with a second ship which he kept docked directly beside The Grover Cleveland. Master Cain lived with his family in a very old house described as ram-shackled, paint-less, and surrounded with garbage as well as being within shouting distance of The Grover Cleveland. Cain and his wife, referred to only as Mrs. Cain or His old Lady in the Federal writing project interview, had eight children together, all of whom had survived infancy despite suffering from what Cain referred to as “the sickness”. Cain and his family were practicing Catholics, and all of his adult sons were shrimpers, like their father. His sons worked on different shrimping boats, for reasons which, explained in own Cain’s words, protected their livelihood. “We don't have all our eggs in the same basket and we always got a chance to have some thin' com’in in”. As of 1938, only one of Cain’s children was married: a daughter, who married a man who, like her father, was a shrimper.

Bayou La Batre, located in Mobile county

Social and Cultural Issues

Poverty, Shrimping, And The Great Depression

In the years following the massive economic downturn of The Great Depression, employment opportunity was severely limited throughout the country. In rural America, farming and fishing became the only available source of income for many. Matthew L. Downs for the University of Mobile writes that “Alabama's already limited non-farm employment fell 15 percent between 1930 and 1940" In 1930's Alabama, shrimping was less an occupation of choice than one of necessity. According to Ann R. Tickamyer and Cynthia M. Duncan “Many rural communities lack stable employment, opportunities for mobility, investment in the community, and diversity in the economy and other social institutions.” Desperate families flocked to the shrimping industry seeking a livelihood, means to support their families, and opportunity they ultimately would not find. Ram-shackled houses, little to no pay, and barely enough food to feed a family, was the reality of life in the shrimping industry of Bayou La Batre Alabama in 1938. With little to no other opportunities for employment or education, the best option for many was this life of poverty.

Many notable scholars have acknowledged one causation of poverty to be the failure of larger social or economic systems and the repercussions such failures generate. Rank writes “The work of Charles Booth (1892-1897), Seebohm Rowntree (1901), Hull House (1895), Robert Hunter (1904), and W. E. B. DuBois (1899) all emphasized the importance of inadequate wages, lack of jobs, and unstable working conditions as a primary cause of poverty.”

A Bayou La Batre seafood vessel

Alabama and The Great Depression

Of a post great depression Alabama, Downs writes “The era reshaped the state's political, economic, and social traditions, highlighted the economic inequalities associated with industrial work, and challenged Alabama's long-standing social and racial hierarchies, even encouraging some Alabamians, black and white, to push for basic civil rights.” As the owner and captain of his own vessel, Master Cain's story may, at first glance, seem to be one of individual success among an industry that offered very little to its lower level employees, and more often than embodied the ways in which the wealthy reaped a profit from the exploitation of the desperation of the poor. However like many others, Cain's family only barely managed to scrape by, and struggled to feed their family of ten, despite the effort of the entire family. When interviewed by Evans, Mrs. Cain is recorded saying “we ain't gone nowhere nor done nothing but try to make a livin' “ And yet for Cain and his family, and many others, the hope of an American dream remained.

Writing for American Public Media, Kate Ellis and Ellen Guettler state “It's the belief that in the United States, people are free to pursue opportunity, and that through hard work, they can make a better life for themselves and their children.” Cain dreamed of a life not of self-indulgence, but one in which he achieved his perceived highest potential of being his own boss. Cain may not have truly escaped poverty, but with his own boat and his own business, he achieved his own version of the American dream.

Rural America: Hardships Outside City Limits

Bayou La Batre (birthplace and home of Master Cain), a fishing and shrimping community.

Americans living in rural regions during the great depression faced a disproportionate share of the country’s deeply impoverished population. This can be linked to a structure of severely limited employment and educational opportunity, however it can also be linked to a unique disadvantage of rural Americans: in rural areas, the suffering of the poor is far from the eyes of the majority of Americans. The pains of poverty in rural America was granted far less attention than the suffering of those in more densely populated cities. Tickamyer and Duncan write that “Others remained poor in rural areas, but rural poverty did not receive the same attention as urban poverty, and until very recently, rural poverty has been the direct focus of only a small number of sociological studies” In the absence of attention and aid, poverty in rural farming and fishing communities like Bayou La Batre Alabama worsened. According to the Encyclopedia of Alabama "In Alabama, for example, personal annual income fell from an already low $311 in 1929 to a $194 in 1935."

In addition to the obvious economic disadvantages the great depression presented poor families, rural Americans were often mocked by a large portion of the population. Despite the success of popular works like The Grapes of Wrath, and the general acceptance of Steinbeck's iconic portrayal of the American "Okie", other rural Americans were not afforded the same glamorized portrayal. In To Watch the Faces of the Poor": "Life" Magazine and the Mythology of Rural Poverty in the Great Depression, it is written that “The worthy poor were not the only whites represented in Life in the thirties, however. Unworthy "white trash" appear in several stories where poor people are ridiculed for their alleged promiscuousness or lack of intelligence.” This discriminatory view of poor Americans granted them no advantages, and highly perpetuated the existence of poverty in rural regions across the country.

Bibliography

“A Better Life: Creating The American Dream.” American RadioWorks - A Better Life, americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/americandream/a1.html.

Cunningham, Charles. “‘To Watch the Faces of the Poor’: Life Magazine and the Mythology of Rural Poverty in the Great Depression.” Journal of Narrative Theory, vol. 29, no. 3, 1999, pp. 278–302., doi:10.1353/jnt.2011.0072.

"Folder 23: Evans, Lawrence (interviewer): Master Cain, of the Grover Cleveland, of Bayou la Batre :: Federal Writers Project Papers". dc.lib.unc.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-29.

“Great Depression in Alabama.” Encyclopedia of Alabama, Accessed March 23, 2021. www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-3608.

Rank, Mark R, et al. “American Poverty as a Structural Failing: Evidence and Arguments.” One Nation, Underprivileged, 2004, pp. 49–82., doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195101683.003.0003.

Tickamyer, Ann R., and Cynthia M. Duncan. “Poverty and Opportunity Structure in Rural America.” Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 16, no. 1, 1990, pp. 67–86., doi:10.1146/annurev.so.16.080190.000435.