After working in Florida real estate, railway construction, and citrus-growing, Herbert Jackson Drane turned to politics, first at the local level, and eventually in the U.S. Congress. Drane served in the U.S. House from 1917 to 1932. His district included Tarpon Springs, a bayou-speckled city on the Gulf of Mexico, home of the famous sea sponge ground.
In most photographs, the Representative appeared serious, his mouth stern. But in a 1920 photograph taken in his office, Drane showed a hint of a paternal smile while gazing down at a large sponge. “His office walls and desk are covered with sponges of every size and variety,” the Belleville News Democrat noted, which could be useful “if official Washington ever needs a chairman for a committee on keeping ‘political slates’ clean.” The Seattle Daily Times reported that Drane boosted his home product by filling his office with specimens, “and he never loses an opportunity to tell his friends what a fine variety are produced at home.”
Drane used his office to showcase sponges and spark conversations about the phylum Porifera. At the time, before they were artificially produced, scrubbers used in the bath and in painting started out as animals living on the ocean floor. At first, fishers harvested the creatures by using hooks, then by diving. They removed the sponges’ pulp and left only the skeleton, which they sold as a product. Tarpon Springs specialized in sheepwool, yellow, grass, and wire types. “Basically, sponges are useful to mankind because nothing else in nature can mop up so much liquid and release it so quickly by squeezing,” the book The Wonders of Sponges informs readers.
Known as the “patron saint of the sponge fleet,” Drane also provided more direct services to his constituents. Because his district included many immigrants, his constituents called on him to assist with entry problems and local tensions. “He is constantly using his influence with immigration authorities to reunite mothers and sons, husbands and wives who have been separated for years,” the Trenton Evening Times reported in 1929.
Soon after the establishment of Tarpon Springs as a sponging ground in 1898, competition with Key West kicked up. In Key West, spongers stuck to the same shallow, overfished water and used hooks to grab and hoist the animals into their dinghies. But the Greek fishermen brought a new technique—diving—to Tarpon Springs. By using diving suits, they were able to go further out into new, deep waters and locate species with a higher street value. The ensuing decline of the Key West market led to trouble between the two populations.
For his devotion to his constituents and their industry, Drane received an unusual honor: District residents named a boat for their Representative. After setting off from Tarpon Springs, the sponge boat followed the Anclote River out to Rock Island in the Gulf of Mexico. Newspapers reported that “Those who sight it know at a glance that it is the Herbert J. Drane off to fill its hold with sponges.”
Sources: David J. Starkey, Poul Holm, and Michaela Barnard, Oceans Past: Management Insights from the History of Marine Animal Populations (London: Earthscan, 2008); Morris K. Jacobson and Rosemary K. Pang, Wonders of Sponges (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1976); Belleville News Democrat, March 8, 1920; Seattle Daily Times, June 2, 1921; Tampa Morning Tribune, April 27, 1923; Boston Globe, December 1, 1929; Hearing before the Committee on Ways and Means, 70th Cong., 2nd sess. (February 15, 18-19, 1929).
This is part of a series of blog posts exploring the art and history of photographs from the House Collection.
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