Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation
FormerlyBethlehem Steel Corporation
TypeCorporation
IndustryShipbuilding
Founded1905 (1905) in Quincy, Massachusetts, U.S.
Defunct1997
Headquarters,
U.S.
Area served
United States
ProductsShips

Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Division was created in 1905 when the Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, acquired the San Francisco-based shipyard Union Iron Works.[1][2] In 1917 it was incorporated as Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Limited.

The division's headquarters were moved to Quincy, Massachusetts, after acquiring the Fore River Shipyard in 1913.

In 1940, Bethlehem Shipbuilding was the largest of the "Big Three" U.S. shipbuilders that could build any ship,[3] followed by Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock and New York Shipbuilding Corporation (New York Ship). Bethlehem expanded shortly before and during World War II as a result of the Long Range Shipbuilding Program and later the Emergency Shipbuilding program orchestrated by the United States Maritime Commission and the Two Ocean Navy program and its war-time successors by the military establishment.

In 1964, the now-corporate headquarters moved to Sparrows Point, Maryland, southeast of Baltimore, whose shipyard had been acquired in 1916.

The Quincy / Fore River yard was sold to General Dynamics Corporation in the mid-1960s, and closed in 1986. The Alameda Works Shipyard in California was closed by Bethlehem Steel in the early 1970s, while the San Francisco facility (former Union Iron Works) was sold to British Aerospace in the mid-1990s and survives today as BAE Systems San Francisco Ship Repair.

Bethlehem Steel ceased shipbuilding activities in 1997 in an attempt to preserve its core steelmaking operations.

Shipyards

Shipyards owned or operated by Bethlehem:

New York

  • Became part of Bethlehem with the purchase of United Shipyards on June 2, 1938 for $9,320,000[4]
    • they were called the Staten Island Works, the Brooklyn 56th Street Works, the Brooklyn 27th Street Works and the Hoboken Works of the New York Plant of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation.[11]

Boston

Baltimore

San Francisco

Others

See also

References

  1. Bethlehem Steel Company Shipbuilding Division. A century of progress, 1849-1949: San Francisco Yard. San Francisco, 1949?
  2. Strohmeier, Daniel D. (1963). "A History of Bethlehem Steel Company's Shipbuilding and Ship Repairing Activities". Naval Engineers Journal. 75 (2): 259–280. doi:10.1111/j.1559-3584.1963.tb04865.x. ISSN 1559-3584.
  3. "Billion-Dollar Feast", Time. May 20, 1940. Accessed August 20, 2007.
  4. "Bethlehem Shipbuilding Expansion". Pacific Marine Review. July 1938. p. 42.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Bethlehem Steel Corporation Annual Report for the year ended 31 December 1963.
  6. John Pike. "Mariners Harbor, Staten Island". globalsecurity.org.
  7. shipbuildinghistory.com Bethlehem Staten Island
  8. "Abbreviations & symbols". Naval History and Heritage Command. Archived from the original on August 24, 2007.
  9. Richard L. Porter, et al., Historic American Engineering Record No. NJ-95, "Bethlehem Steel Company Shipyard Archived January 7, 2014, at the Wayback Machine," 1994
  10. John Pike. "Hoboken Shipyards". globalsecurity.org.
  11. "(Bethlehem announcement ad)". Pacific Marine Review. August 1938. p. 53.
  12. "Bethlehem Steel Elizabethport, Crescent Shipyard, Lewis Nixon, Samuel Moore". Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2007-08-28.
  13. globalsecurity.org Bayonne Naval Drydock
  14. "Bethlehem Hingham". Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-08-23.
  15. John Pike. "Bethlehem Shipbuilding, Sparrows Point MD". globalsecurity.org.
  16. John Pike. "Fairfield Shipyard". globalsecurity.org.
  17. "Books: Civil War - the Union". www.marylandsilver.com. Archived from the original on 6 January 2014.
  18. thedailyrecord.com, General ship repair
  19. baltimoreheritage.org Bethlehem Key Highway
  20. Bethlehem Baltimore shipyards
  21. "Bethlehem Steel Wilmington, Harlan & Hollingsworth". Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-08-23.
  22. "Bethlehem Beaumont, Pennsylvania Shipyards". shipbuildinghistory.com. Retrieved 2021-07-21.
  23. "Drilling Rigs Built in U.S. Shipyards". ShipbuildingHistory.com. Archived from the original on November 10, 2015. Retrieved November 9, 2015.
  24. "Bethlehem Steel Company, Beaumont, TX". Shipbuilding.com. Archived from the original on January 2, 2016. Retrieved November 9, 2015.
  25. "Merchant Ship Builders Pennsylvania". Maritime Business Strategies, LLC (www.coltoncompany.com). Archived from the original on 2007-08-15. Retrieved 2007-08-28.
  26. "Bethlehem Beaumont". Maritime Business Strategies, LLC (www.coltoncompany.com). Archived from the original on 2007-08-23. Retrieved 2007-08-28.
  27. "The Decline of U.S. Shipbuilding: Yards that built deep-draft, self-propelled, oceangoing naval and/or merchant ships". Maritime Business Strategies, LLC (www.coltoncompany.com). Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-08-28.
  28. Bethlehem Steel Dedicates Its New Sabine Yard In Port Arthur, Texas Maritime Reporter, Dec. 1985
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