Talking smack: The archaeology and history of pensacola's red snapper fishing industry

Though human populations living along northwest Florida's Gulf of Mexico coastline have long utilized locally abundant marine resources, the formation of a red snapper fishing industry in Pensacola, Florida, brought marine resource exploitation in the region to an unprecedented level in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Along with other industries, commercial red snapper fishing in Pensacola underwent significant growth during this period and helped shape the port city's new importance as a cosmopolitan, southern economic center. Utilizing a historical ecological approach, this thesis provides a multidisciplinary analysis of commercial fishing culture, commercial fishing vessels, and the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery to explore the dynamic relationship the industry held with the local environment. Additionally, archaeological and historical evidence provides the basis for a model describing the structural and material characteristics of potential Pensacola commercial red snapper fishing shipwrecks in the region.