13. Contract between Seid Chuck & Seufert Bros., 1908

This document is a contract between the Seufert Brothers Company, which ran a salmon and fruit cannery in The Dalles, and Seid Chuck, a Chinese labor contractor. It is dated January 4, 1908.

George Hume brought the first Chinese workers to Columbia River salmon canneries in 1872. Two years later the Weekly Astorian noted that Chinese workers made up the “chief reliable form of help” at Columbia River canneries. In order to recruit a reliable work force, canneries generally contracted with Chinese labor bosses, who then arranged to fill the individual positions specified in the contract. The contract above is for approximately forty men to work from March 15 to November 15 for between $240 and $360 for the season. The crew also received board for $6.50 per month, a $100 seasonal allowance for food, a round-trip train ticket from Portland, and an acre of land near the cannery on which to grow vegetables. In 1908 cannery workers worked for eleven hours a day, six days a week. By the 1920s the workday was shortened to ten hours a day, and by the 1930s it fell to eight hours a day.