The daughter of Presbyterian missionaries, Katherine Paterson studied religion in college. She relied on her extensive knowledge of biblical tales involving sibling rivalry to create the young adult novel Jacob Have I Loved. Additionally, Paterson attributes her inspiration for the book's Chesapeake Bay setting to William Warner, author of Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs, and the Chesapeake Bay. Jacob Have I Loved captures the lifestyle of the fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay, also depicting the types of experiences a teenager such as Paterson's character Louise would have had there during the 1940s.
The fishing industry in Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay measures almost exactly two hundred miles from north to south. Located between the harbor at Norfolk, Virginia, and the Chesapeake Delaware Canal, it is the largest inland body of water on the Atlantic coast of the United States. On the bay's eastern shore sits Maryland, with the majority of the smaller islands located here as well; on the western coast is Virginia. The bay supports the thriving industry of crab fishing, providing more crabs for human consumption than any body of water in the world.
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