A river with a long shipbuilding history
Shipbuilding along the Delaware is older than Camden itself. Colonial builders turned out small vessels for coastal trade and river traffic, and by the nineteenth century, yards on both banks built wooden and then iron and steel ships. The river offered several advantages: sheltered, deep water; nearby supplies of iron, coal and timber; skilled metalworkers and machinists; and a regional network of suppliers. Navigating this tidal river, covered under river navigation, remained a practical consideration for launching large hulls.
The yard at Camden
The best-known shipyard in Camden was the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, founded in 1899 and set up on the New Jersey waterfront. Despite its name, it was located in Camden, not New York. It grew into one of the largest private yards in the United States and built a wide range of vessels over its history.
Some points are well documented.
- It built merchant ships and naval vessels for the United States Navy over many years.
- Its output included warships such as the cruiser USS Indianapolis, launched in 1931, and the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, launched in 1925 and converted from a battle cruiser hull under the limits set by naval arms treaties.
- In the Second World War, the yard built aircraft carriers and cruisers in large numbers, using wartime expansion to increase its workforce considerably.
- In the late 1950s, it built the NS Savannah, an experimental nuclear-powered merchant ship, launched in 1959.
- The yard closed in 1967.
Exact counts of ships, tonnage and employees vary between sources, so any single figure should be checked against a dedicated naval history or archive.
Other yards operated nearby, including in neighboring communities along the river, such as Gloucester City. The Philadelphia Navy Yard on the Pennsylvania side added to the concentration of shipbuilding and ship repair capacity in the region.
What a shipyard involved
Building a large steel ship was an enormous undertaking. Naval architects drew up plans, and loft workers transferred the lines of the hull to full-size templates. Plates and frames were cut, shaped and assembled on a building way, a sloping slip leading to the water. Riveters, and later welders, joined the structure. Machinists, pipefitters, electricians and joiners installed engines, boilers, wiring and living spaces. When the hull was ready, it was launched into the river and moved to a fitting-out pier, where the remaining work was completed before trials.
This variety of crafts meant that a yard was a major employer of skilled trades, and a large supplier network supported it: foundries, machine shops, steel mills, electrical firms and transport companies. The yard’s wide effects on jobs overlapped with those of the docks, a theme in the article on port facilities.
Why yards mattered in wartime
In both world wars, the capacity to build ships quickly was a strategic asset. Navies needed warships, and supply lines needed merchant vessels to carry troops, equipment and food across the oceans. Losses to enemy action meant replacements were needed at speed.
Several features of the Delaware yards suited them to this role.
- Existing skills. Experienced shipbuilders and suppliers could be mobilized more quickly than new workforces could be trained.
- Large slips and equipment. Yards could build big vessels, including carriers.
- Transport links. Rail and road lines could bring steel and machinery to the site, as in the story of railroad links.
- Government contracts. Wartime procurement provided stable demand and funding for expansion.
Wartime brought rapid hiring, longer hours and many new workers, including women, who took up jobs in production as men entered the armed forces. The wider regional effort is covered in the article on wartime production.
Decline of the American shipbuilding industry
After the war, naval orders fell, and commercial shipbuilding in the United States faced growing competition from yards in other countries with lower costs and heavy state support. Changes in ship design and the need for new facilities also tested older sites. Camden’s yard was one of many to close in the postwar decades. The effects were felt in the loss of skilled jobs and the strain on neighborhoods that depended on the payroll, a subject returned to in the discussion of deindustrialization.
What remains
Former shipyard land has since been used in other ways, and the industrial legacy includes both heritage and environmental questions, such as those described under industrial contamination. Visitors can learn more through museums, historical societies and archives, and by viewing the river from public spaces. Anyone interested in individual ships may find detailed records in naval history collections.