Mauretania in dazzle paint

Ocean liners were pressed into service to carry troops and supplies, especially during the first world war. Even the luxurious British liner Mauretania carried more than 53,000 American troops to Europe in 1918 and 1919. For protection at sea, ocean liners during wartime were painted in “dazzle” patterns to confuse submarines at a distance.

The huge cost of creating Hog Island generated controversy and congressional investigations. Newspapers charged American International Shipbuilding Corp. with graft and corruption.

W. A. Rogers, artist; published in the New York Herald, February 10, 1918

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Workers at lunchtime walk past dozens of ships under construction, Hog Island, January 1919.

From a scrapbook donated by James D. Andrew Jr.

Plate puller, about 1918

Workers used this tool to align pre-punched holes in standardized hull plates before riveting them.

Gift of Walter Davis

Typical Wartime Freighter, 1919

The federal government’s massive investment in shipbuilding was a boon to American industry. In gratitude, the Association of Northwestern Shipbuilders presented this silver model to outgoing Emergency Fleet Corporation Director-General Charles Piez in April 1919.

Shipyard volunteer’s button, 1918–19

Transfer from the U.S. Shipping Board, Emergency Fleet Corporation

A Launching

To mark Memorial Day in 1919, the Hog Island shipyard launched five freighters in 48 minutes. Laura Andrew, wife of the yard’s ship-construction manager, christened the last of these, the Luxpalile, by breaking this bottle over its the bow. She received the broken glass in this box as a memento.

“Wendy the Welder” and “Rosie the Riveter”

Women entered the work force in history-making numbers during World War II. At the peak of wartime production in 1943, women made up more than 10 percent of the work force in most of the shipyards. Although “Rosie the Riveter” was their symbol, there actually were few women riveters. “Wendy the Welder” is closer to the truth, since women helped assemble the first generation of welded ships. These women are chipping excess metal from a welded joint at Baltimore’s Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyards.

Absentees Sabotage Ships

Work incentive posters were used to pressure shipyards and their workers to keep up production. Posters stressed the importance of shipbuilding to the nation. Missing a day of work was unpatriotic.

Courtesy of the U.S. Maritime Commission

Temporary Housing

The rush of workers into shipyards strained housing and school systems in coastal communities around the country. Many shipyards built whole neighborhoods of prefabricated homes for their employees, or brought in trailers like these at the North Carolina Shipbuilding Co. in Wilmington, 1942.

Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration

Traveling Schoolchildren

World War II scrambled American society. Jobs in shipyards brought men, women, and families to parts of the country they had never visited before. In their new homes, they often lived and worked among people of many different backgrounds. In 1942, Photographer Dorothea Lange took this photograph in Richmond, California, noting, “Every hand up signifies a child not born in California.”

Courtesy of The Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland

Are you missing from this picture?

The U.S. Maritime Commission recruited shipyard workers with posters like this, about 1944.

Norman Kenyon, artist

Courtesy of the U.S. Maritime Commission

Full-Time Work

In wartime shipyards, like this one in Baltimore, workers labored around the clock. Two months before Pearl Harbor, the first Liberty ship, named for the Revolutionary War patriot Patrick Henry, was launched in Chesapeake Bay.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Launching Day

Launching ceremonies were public events, meant to lift morale among workers as well as other citizens. Most of the launching sponsors were women, chosen because of some connection to the ship or the community.

The Liberty ship Peter Donahue, named for the founder of Union Iron Works in San Francisco, was launched on February 12, 1943, in Sausalito, California, with many Boy Scouts present. The sponsor, Mrs. Thomas C. Nelson, was the mother of two Eagle Scouts, one of whom was missing in action with the U.S. Navy at the time.

Silver dollar launching, 1942

Launching gangs were responsible for ensuring a smooth transition as the ship slid from land to water. Shipwright Archie Green received this coin from his crew leader to commemorate the successful launching of a C3 cargo ship in San Francisco.

Building Victories

Victory ships are under construction at California Shipbuilding Corp., Los Angeles, 1944.

Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration

Pre-Fabricated and Pre-Assembled

To build ships as quickly as possible, workers pieced them together assembly-line fashion from pre-made sections built at the shipyard. About 120 large units, made up of some 250,000 items, went into building each ship.

Liberty Ship T. J. Jackson was launched in New Orleans, Louisiana, on April 23, 1942.