Detail of salmon butchering machine patented as the "Iron Chink", patented 1906

• Main Author: Richard Nicol
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Subjects: Smith; Edmund A; Pacific; Yukon; Alaska
• Online Access: http://cdm16786.contentdm.oclc.org:80/cdm/ref/collection/kccollects/id/378

The "Iron Chink" named by its inventor, Edmund Smith, after the Chinese laborers it was invented to replace. Although much of the salmon canning process was mechanized in the early years of the 20th century, much of the butchering was still done by skilled Chinese hand butchers. This machine could accomplish work six times faster than the most skilled hand butcher. It was displayed at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, in Seattle, 1909, as new and exciting technology in thisresource-based economy.