The first Asian-American cannery workers entered the salmon industry in 1870 at George Hume's cannery on the Washington side of the Columbia River. This was just six years after the Hume family founded the canned salmon industry. That year, Hume hired15 Chinese men to work in his cannery.By 1874, only one of the 13 canneries along the Columbia River had anything but an entirely Chinese crew. Chinese cannery workers traveled to Alaska in 1878 to help establish the first canneries at Klawock and Sitka.
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