Book excerpt: This book portrays the history of the people, places, and boats of the commercial shrimping industry in the Southeast. In addition to accessing research from traditional sources, such as libraries, museums and old newspapers, the author conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with the fishermen themselves. Many of these men were in there 60s,70s and 80s; and their stories, family recipes and poems give authenticity and color to the book.In addition to providing an accurate text describing the development of shrimping, the author believed that seeing the industry was as important as reading about it. Accordingly, there are over 800 pictures in this book which in addition to the boats and people include tools, maps and other equipment. These were gleaned from years of research, and travels to the many places where shrimping was born and grew. Some of these have never been published previously.Before the invention of refrigerated boxcars in 1875, the US shrimping industry virtually didn't exist. People ate what they caught. The book begins with the region's earliest shrimpers: Italian and Portuguese fishermen who came to Fernandina and St. Augustine at the end of the 19th century and combined an enterprising ingenuity with old-world fishing techniques to turn shrimping into a profitable industry. Subsequent chapters show life in major shrimping ports up and down the coast; St. Augustine, Fernandina, Thunderbolt and Savannah, Port Royal, Beaufort, Hilton Head Island, Bennetts Point, Edisto, Rockville, Shem Creek, McClellanville and Georgetown. Additionally, a chapter offers a colorful glimpse of the Blessing of the Fleet ceremonies. Finally, there is a chapter that examines the integral role that shrimpers played in keeping the German chemical company, BASF, from building a plant that could have devastated local fishing. This event was absolutely momentous, as it may have saved the future of many seaside resorts, like Hilton Head, that depended on clean waters.All proceeds of sales will go to the South Carolina Seafood Alliance, which advocates for healthy and safe seafood sourcesContains: 9 chapters, approx. 300 pages, more than 800 photos and imagesAuthor: Beverly Bowers Jenningswww.ShrimpTales.org