April 30, 2019 — This month, the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport finished preserving, scanning and cataloging National Fisherman magazine’s massive photographic archive. The images were stuffed into filing cabinets at the publication’s Portland office for decades. Now, every image is online, in a searchable database, for the whole world to see for free.
The broad ranging archive reveals the compelling, gritty world of commercial fishing. The collection of prints and negatives originally accompanied stories and advertisements. They show emerging technology, as well as everyday fisherfolk hauling nets, processing the catch, repairing trawlers, building boats and setting Coast Guard buoys.
The Penobscot Marine Museum’s mission is to preserve, interpret, and celebrate the maritime culture of the Penobscot Bay region. The museum dedicates significant resources to preserving historic photographs. It currently holds more than 140,000 negatives, prints, slides, postcards and daguerreotypes. All are available for research, reproduction and licensing.
National Fishermen is still published by Diversified Communications. It’s headquartered on Commercial Street in Portland. It covers the fishing industry all over the country. It began publishing in Camden in 1946 as Maine Coast Fisherman. Over the ensuing decades, it bought and consolidated several regional fisheries magazines. It became National Fisherman in 1960.