Scope and Contents: These images often include both photographs of the shipyards and the multitude of ships they produced. The regions are: Baltimore-area (includes Baltimore Dry Dock Co.), Fairfield and Sparrows Point, Maryland, yards which are noteworthy for their extensive holdings of Liberty and Victory ship negatives; Boston-area (includes photographs from repair yards, The Atlantic Works Inc. and Simpson Patent Dry Docks, which Bethlehem superseded), World War One shipyards at Fore River, Quincy, and Squantum, Massachusetts and a World War Two shipyard at Hingham, Massachusetts; California shipyards include San Francisco (the Union Iron Works period and, many years later, a ventilation caisson built for BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), Alameda (originally a Union Iron Works yard), and Terminal Island at San Pedro where Liberty ships and destroyers were built; New York-area yards include Brooklyn 27th St. (originally built by Theodore Crane & Sons and James Shewan & Sons) and 56th St. (originally built by Morse Iron Works), Hoboken, New Jersey (originally W. & A. Fletcher Co.), and Staten Island; Beaumont, Tex., yard which was once Pennsylvania Shipbuilding; Wilmington, Delaware, where the former Harlan and Hollingsworth site changed to Bethlehem ownership in 1904.Several separate components also should be noted. These consist of photographs of American yachts, non-military, and military ships. Some of these images include nineteenth century vessels. Note that examples from the following shipyards are included: Atlantic Works (Boston), J. Abrahams (Baltimore), Beany Son & Archbold (Chester, Pennsylvania), Brown & Bell (New York), Columbian Iron Works (Baltimore), William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Co. (Philadelphia), A. & W. Denmoad & Sons (Baltimore), James B. Edes (St. Louis), John W. Griffith (Kittery, Me.), Harlan & Hollingsworth Corp. (Wilmington, Delaware), Herreshoff Mfg. Co. (Bristol, Connecticut), Howard & Ellis (White Hall, N.C.), Iowa Iron Works (Dubuque), Newport News Ship Building (Virginia), N.F. Palmer & Co. (Chester, Pennsylvania), Peak & Kirby (Cleveland, Ohio), Penine, Secor & Co. (Jersey City, New Jersey), Samuel Pook (Fairhaven, Connecticut), John Roach & Son (Chester, Pennsylvania), Union Iron Works Co. (San Francisco). Nineteenth century items include a drawing of a 50 HP Nagel & Weingaertner steam engine and a hand drawn illustration of a revenue cutter (circa...

Scope and Content:

The surviving records of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Ltd., consist primarily of fragmentary materials documenting the construction of vessels at the various yards.

There are also two small groups of material relating to the company's organization. The first from the office of Robert McMath, Secretary and Vice President, Finance, includes the papers for the merger forming the company in 1917 and the subsequent acquisitions of the Fore River Shipbuilding Corporation, the Union Iron Works Dry Dock Company, the Baltimore Dry Docks & Shipbuilding Company, the Simpson's Patent Dry Dock Company, the Southwestern Shipbuilding Company, the Atlantic Works, and United Shipyards, Inc.

More important are two volumes of reports of working committees (1918-1920). They contain analyses and recommendations by committees of engineers and foremen for each of the various tasks performed at each of the company's yards. They give a relatively complete picture of local conditions. There are also miscellaneous records dealing with cost accounting methods. a record of vessels built at each yard between 1900 and 1923. and a volume of plant histories compiled in 1926. Another volume contains photographic copies of maps of all of the yards built by the Emergency Fleet Corporation between 1917 and 1919.

The remainder of the records consist of specifications and a few drawings for vessels built at the various yards, plus some unsuccessful bids. There are also several portfolios of drawings of boilers, turbines, and distilling plants used in Bethlehem vessels.