mentioned briefly were the hazardous worker conditions at the shipyards. Similar conditions at prior Kaiser projects had company chief doctor Garfield convince Henry Kaiser to do something about this: thus was born Kaiser Permanente (named after a creek), the first concept of "health maintenance" (health problem *prevention*) i.e. HMO, and both a hospital system as well as insurance plan, rather than mere worker's compensation insurance which only helps with care *after* a disease or injury. I can't find proof of this, but I believe I read somewhere that being under the same Kaiser umbrella, KP was able to encourage safety programs at the shipyards to help reduce the risks of injury and thus the need for later healthcare.
By coincidence today I accompanied my wife to the doctor and brought along my laptop to read this article whilst I waited⎯at Kaiser Permanente, probably the most efficient fully integrated, all around best health care system in the United States.
Thanks for the great piece. One detail to add: women were able to join this workforce because the federal government created childcare centers associated with the shipyards. See (my wife' article): Susan E. Riley, "Caring for Rosie's Children: Federal Child Care Policies in the World War II Era" https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.2307/3235099?journalCode=pol
What a great article. It's enjoyable to remember when we could build things. You know if something like the "6 Companies" were given such a contract today, people would scream about corruption and no-bid contracts and underhanded dealings. I get it... but sometimes, strategic realities require cutting red tape. NEPA has to take a backseat to survival.
Prior to his political career, Newt Gingrich was a WWII history professor. He said this in 2008 at a speech in Atlanta:
"December 7th 1941 to August 14th, 1945 is less than 4 years. In less than 4 years, we defeated Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan. Today it takes 23 years to add a 5th runway to the Atlanta airport. We are simply not prepared, today, to be a serious country."
The ruling class only opens the spigots when faced with an existential threat. We could have built that runway a lot more quickly and compensated or relocated everyone in its path, but the ruling class expects airports to show a profit or at least break even. Our ruling class doesn't feel threatened, so it's all about extraction. That makes it hard to do anything except direct subsidies to the most wealthy.
Thanks for another great writeup, Brian! It's easy to forget the sheer scale of coordinating people and material that has to go into a rapid buildup like this. Outside the pressures of war, it's hard to imagine something like this taking place.
In the end you discuss that the US shipyard wasn't able to match the efficiencies of UK shipyards. Do you have found out any explanation of why that is? One would think that the learning curve would catapult the US yards well past the UK ones.
Fortune had a great maritime issue back in September 1937. The US was a major shipbuilding power in the days of sail. The high point was probably 1849 when there was a shipping boom to support the California Gold Rush. The introduction of steam by the British in 1840 and then the depression of 1857 clobbered US ship building, and it never recovered in terms of cost or production. (1857 was the year of the Sepoy Rebellion which led England to change the way India was ruled. It kicked out the East India Company.) The British government massively subsidized ship building both directly and by developing an international mail service to support its world empire.
The US wasn't building a world empire. It was focusing on its inland empire based on rail. That required billions in subsidies of its own. The US did try a few subsidies, but by 1891 the "U.S. foreign merchant marine had almost ceased to exist". The US arranged for some subsidies including mail contracts, but never really built up its merchant marine. When the first world war broke out, England and the other European nations diverted their own shipping to support their war efforts. The US found itself without available shipping which led to the development of Hog Island near Philadelphia as a major government driven shipbuilding site.
I'm not sure of why the US lost its ship building mojo with the rise of steam powered and iron clad ships. The US wasn't a world power until after World War II, and, by then, aviation was increasingly important. Through its history, the US has been more focused on its inland empire. The Great Lakes and the Mississippi River system required an inland merchant marine, but the railroads were much more important to the economy. The government spent a lot of money developing a continental rail system and then a continental highway system. Both yielded high returns. A better merchant marine just wouldn't pay off the same way it would for the British with their world empire or Japan with its trade orientation and, at times, desire for regional hegemony.
Another innovation was the. use of women in ship construction. Ship construction also benefitted from having a work force ready to go via the Great Depression.
The post war boom benefitted from having a large trained workforce that could be reorganized for civilian production.
In addition to employing women (and providing ground-breaking daycare facilities), Kaiser was also color blind, happily employing blacks and housing them next to whites in Vanport (near the Vancouver Washington and Portland shipyards), which became Oregon's second-largest city for a time. It is quite possible that Kaiser did more to win the war than almost any other individual, and certainly more than any U.S. civilian.
After the war, Kaiser built automobiles, homes, and hotels and manufactured steel, aluminum, magnesium, and cement. He was also good to his workers, never objected to unionization, and was the first industrialist to earn the AFL-CIO Murray-Green Humanitarian Award.
So in summary, would it be fair to say that the US shipbuilding industry didn't innovate in terms of efficiency, but in terms of "9 women *can* make a baby in 1 month"? Contrasting the greater efficiency but slower speed of the British shipbuilding industry -- the US went for something like "10 women make a baby in 1 month", the Brits for "1 woman makes a baby in 9 months". The US in essence figured out how to spend resources faster, a la your article about Levittown (https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-levittown-didnt-revolutionize) -- it was good for the demands of wartime, but didn't fit the demands of peacetime.
Yep, definitely. But it's always fun to turn around the "9 women can't make a baby in 1 month" advice, which is generally good advice, with a real world example where "Huh, they literally took a bunch of women and made a 'baby' in 1 month".
mentioned briefly were the hazardous worker conditions at the shipyards. Similar conditions at prior Kaiser projects had company chief doctor Garfield convince Henry Kaiser to do something about this: thus was born Kaiser Permanente (named after a creek), the first concept of "health maintenance" (health problem *prevention*) i.e. HMO, and both a hospital system as well as insurance plan, rather than mere worker's compensation insurance which only helps with care *after* a disease or injury. I can't find proof of this, but I believe I read somewhere that being under the same Kaiser umbrella, KP was able to encourage safety programs at the shipyards to help reduce the risks of injury and thus the need for later healthcare.
By coincidence today I accompanied my wife to the doctor and brought along my laptop to read this article whilst I waited⎯at Kaiser Permanente, probably the most efficient fully integrated, all around best health care system in the United States.
Thanks for the great piece. One detail to add: women were able to join this workforce because the federal government created childcare centers associated with the shipyards. See (my wife' article): Susan E. Riley, "Caring for Rosie's Children: Federal Child Care Policies in the World War II Era" https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.2307/3235099?journalCode=pol
What a great article. It's enjoyable to remember when we could build things. You know if something like the "6 Companies" were given such a contract today, people would scream about corruption and no-bid contracts and underhanded dealings. I get it... but sometimes, strategic realities require cutting red tape. NEPA has to take a backseat to survival.
Prior to his political career, Newt Gingrich was a WWII history professor. He said this in 2008 at a speech in Atlanta:
"December 7th 1941 to August 14th, 1945 is less than 4 years. In less than 4 years, we defeated Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan. Today it takes 23 years to add a 5th runway to the Atlanta airport. We are simply not prepared, today, to be a serious country."
That was 17 years ago.
The ruling class only opens the spigots when faced with an existential threat. We could have built that runway a lot more quickly and compensated or relocated everyone in its path, but the ruling class expects airports to show a profit or at least break even. Our ruling class doesn't feel threatened, so it's all about extraction. That makes it hard to do anything except direct subsidies to the most wealthy.
Thanks for another great writeup, Brian! It's easy to forget the sheer scale of coordinating people and material that has to go into a rapid buildup like this. Outside the pressures of war, it's hard to imagine something like this taking place.
In the end you discuss that the US shipyard wasn't able to match the efficiencies of UK shipyards. Do you have found out any explanation of why that is? One would think that the learning curve would catapult the US yards well past the UK ones.
Fortune had a great maritime issue back in September 1937. The US was a major shipbuilding power in the days of sail. The high point was probably 1849 when there was a shipping boom to support the California Gold Rush. The introduction of steam by the British in 1840 and then the depression of 1857 clobbered US ship building, and it never recovered in terms of cost or production. (1857 was the year of the Sepoy Rebellion which led England to change the way India was ruled. It kicked out the East India Company.) The British government massively subsidized ship building both directly and by developing an international mail service to support its world empire.
The US wasn't building a world empire. It was focusing on its inland empire based on rail. That required billions in subsidies of its own. The US did try a few subsidies, but by 1891 the "U.S. foreign merchant marine had almost ceased to exist". The US arranged for some subsidies including mail contracts, but never really built up its merchant marine. When the first world war broke out, England and the other European nations diverted their own shipping to support their war efforts. The US found itself without available shipping which led to the development of Hog Island near Philadelphia as a major government driven shipbuilding site.
I'm not sure of why the US lost its ship building mojo with the rise of steam powered and iron clad ships. The US wasn't a world power until after World War II, and, by then, aviation was increasingly important. Through its history, the US has been more focused on its inland empire. The Great Lakes and the Mississippi River system required an inland merchant marine, but the railroads were much more important to the economy. The government spent a lot of money developing a continental rail system and then a continental highway system. Both yielded high returns. A better merchant marine just wouldn't pay off the same way it would for the British with their world empire or Japan with its trade orientation and, at times, desire for regional hegemony.
Wonderful complement to the airplane article on how the US managed to build so many airplanes during the Second World War. Great as always!
Another innovation was the. use of women in ship construction. Ship construction also benefitted from having a work force ready to go via the Great Depression.
The post war boom benefitted from having a large trained workforce that could be reorganized for civilian production.
Fantastic writing and post!
In addition to employing women (and providing ground-breaking daycare facilities), Kaiser was also color blind, happily employing blacks and housing them next to whites in Vanport (near the Vancouver Washington and Portland shipyards), which became Oregon's second-largest city for a time. It is quite possible that Kaiser did more to win the war than almost any other individual, and certainly more than any U.S. civilian.
After the war, Kaiser built automobiles, homes, and hotels and manufactured steel, aluminum, magnesium, and cement. He was also good to his workers, never objected to unionization, and was the first industrialist to earn the AFL-CIO Murray-Green Humanitarian Award.
Thank you!
super article... learned a lot... thanks
So in summary, would it be fair to say that the US shipbuilding industry didn't innovate in terms of efficiency, but in terms of "9 women *can* make a baby in 1 month"? Contrasting the greater efficiency but slower speed of the British shipbuilding industry -- the US went for something like "10 women make a baby in 1 month", the Brits for "1 woman makes a baby in 9 months". The US in essence figured out how to spend resources faster, a la your article about Levittown (https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-levittown-didnt-revolutionize) -- it was good for the demands of wartime, but didn't fit the demands of peacetime.
The US could afford to do so.
Yep, definitely. But it's always fun to turn around the "9 women can't make a baby in 1 month" advice, which is generally good advice, with a real world example where "Huh, they literally took a bunch of women and made a 'baby' in 1 month".
Great article, thanks!