Most stories about American industrialism have turned from inspirational myths into cautionary tales. One such story is that of the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, New Jersey. Founded in 1899, New York Ship grew to become the largest shipyard in the world by 1917. World War I sparked such a shipbuilding boom that the War Department had to fund a new city — Yorkship Village — just to house the labor force for New York Ship; it was the first federally funded planned community.
This piece was originally published in Arena Magazine.
By the Second World War, New York Ship employed 47K across a 160-acre site along two miles of the Delaware River. What started as a factory had become an entire economy built to power the largest and most productive shipyard on Earth. New York Ship delivered 670 merchant and naval ships during its life, including three nuclear submarines and even the first nuclear-powered merchant ship.
By the end of WWII, America’s fleet represented 50 million deadweight tons — a measure of total carrying capacity — two-thirds of global tonnage. But after the war ended, the burden of upkeep for such a large fleet felt unnecessary, leading the US to immediately start mothballing and scrapping ships rather than maintaining them. The Cold War sustained demand for specialized naval work, like nuclear submarines and carriers, but that work concentrated in a select group of dedicated yards. Meanwhile, commercial shipbuilding migrated to lower-cost foreign yards. Caught between a shrinking commercial market and increasingly specialized naval contracts, New York Ship didn’t have the business to stay afloat. By 1968, it had shut its doors. Camden, the city that powered New York Ship, tracks an eerie road map for what happens when industrialism falters. The city lost a third of its population, including 30K manufacturing jobs. It now faces a poverty rate of 28.5% and has become one of the most dangerous cities in the country.
The New York Shipbuilding Corporation is just one of dozens of examples of the cost of assuming that America no longer needed a strong industrial base. Particularly in the 1980s, the US came to the conclusion that manufacturing and shipbuilding were commodity processes better suited for lower-cost labor markets in Asia. We’ve seen the same dynamic play out in semiconductors, batteries, mining, and pharmaceuticals. But shipbuilding represents a distinctly gnarly systems problem tangled between defense funding, policy, and a fading American manufacturing core.
This is an excerpt. The full piece is available in Arena Magazine.
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