Shipbuilding History

The 19th century was a period of transition for the shipbuilding industry, as it moved from ships that were built of wood and powered by sail to ships that were built of iron and powered by steam. In the U.S., the years from 1830 to the Civil War were boom years, as the industrial revolution drove increasing volumes of trade and U.S. shipyards built hundreds of full-rigged ships and schooners for both north-south and east-west trade, transoceanic and coastal. After the Civil War, however, the surplus ships were sold off, burned or scrapped and most of the remaining builders of wooden ships went out of business, leaving only those yards which had invested the considerable capital needed for iron shipbuilding and for steam propulsion. As a result, we can effectively date the modern shipbuilding industry from 1865 and concentrate here on those yards that were active in the 50 years between the Civil War and World War One, and could be seen to be making the transition to iron and steam. Despite the romance associated with the multi-masted sailing ships of the 19th century, therefore, these are not the primary subject of this web site.

Documenting the construction records of these yards is not, however, simple. First, it should be noted that there are quite a few shipbuilders that were not only significant before World War One but that continued to be significant for many years after World War One - Newport News, for example - as a result of which they are already included in the Large Shipbuilders section of this web site. This section is, therefore, confined to those shipbuilders that were active before World War One, i.e., they were not emergency yards, but were gone by the time World War One ended, or shortly thereafter. It should also be noted that these are generally yards that built deep-draft vessels designed to carry cargo and/or passengers: they did not generally build fishing vessels, tugs or other types of work boat.

The first group below provides links to the tables for those yards who were still building large wooden hulls in the years between the end of the Civil War and the start of World War I, while the second group provides links to the tables for those yards who began building large iron hulls during that period.