The Lake Erie Fishermen Collection was compiled by Timothy Lloyd and Patrick Mullen from 1983 to 1984 in northern Ohio. The collection includes interviews with 20 individuals, thirty 90-minute TDK cassette tapes, 35 sheets of negatives, 35 contact sheets, 725 slides, 393 black-and-white photographs, 131 pages of logs of 16 interviews, 746 pages of transcription from 25 interviews, and one hardcover book. A secondary collection includes one binder of 52 CDs of audio material and three DVDs of audio material digitized from the cassette tapes.
Timothy C. Lloyd and Patrick B. Mullen began their fieldwork in March 1983 and ended it in September 1985. They spent a total of twelve weeks on or along the Lake, observing, interviewing and documenting the work of commercial fishermen on fishing boats, at shore seining sites, at local fish wholesale houses and at leisure in restaurants, VFW halls, bars, and at kitchen tables. They interviewed active and retired fishermen, members of their families, wholesale distributors, State of Ohio biologists and wildlife enforcement agents. They were lucky enough be able to document the techniques and customs of gill-net fishing before it was prohibited by state regulation a year ago. They found active verbal, material and customary traditions shared among local fishermen, through which the culture and identity of this group are expressed.