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How are the Liberty Ships a Revolution in History?
          A revolution is a very large, important change, and that describes the Liberty Ships.

          The Liberty ships were a fleet of ships built by shipbuilders, sailed by mariners, during World War II. They were able to be built in less than 5 days, but usually took an average of 6 weeks. Sailing from New York and Norfork, VA to England, Islands of the Pacific, Russia, and Africa these ships carried food and supplies to our troops in need. Only 2,500 of the 2,751 Liberty ships survived to transport the supplies.

          The Liberty ships were based on an old English tramp ship design dating back to 1879. They were powered by old-style triple-expansion reciprocating steam engine, with a 10,000 ton capacity plus a full load of fuel. These ships were also called EC-2, which stands for Emergency Cargo, large capacity. The standard Liberty ship was 441 feet 6 inches overall, with a beam of 56 feet, 10.75 inches, a loaded draft of 27 feet, 9.25 inches, and a speed of 11 knots. This speed was seldom reached. The Liberty ships usually travelled in 8 knot convoys.
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These are all Jeremiah O'Brien under construction
          Liberty Ships were built as an emergency response to shipping needs during World War II when submarines were sinking Allied ships faster than they were being built. "The way Henry Kaiser organized his new shipyards during the Second World War was indeed revolutionary. The design of the Liberty Ships was not revolutionary, for they were quite old fashioned. But their relative simplicity made it easier to build them rapidly and cheaply. Ships had traditionally been built from the keel up, with each new piece being fitting into the hull as construction proceeded. Steel ships had also been riveted together. Rivets are steel pegs fitted through holes drilled in overlapping steel plates and then rounded off on both ends. Kaiser introduced new ways of building ships. Rather than building them piece by piece, he had large sections of the ships assembled elsewhere and then attached like big LEGO blocks to the hull. Bows, sterns and deck-houses were assembled elsewhere and then attached to the ship. This meant that several parts of the ship could be built at the same time at different locations in the shipyard. Kaiser also used welding rather than riveting when attaching steel plates together. His main reason for doing this was that it took less time to train new workers, many of whom were women, to weld than to rivet. You may have heard of Rosie the Riveter, a popular symbol of women doing men's work during WW II, but in Kaiser's yards the heroic figure was Wendy the Welder (I have a picture of her on my office door). These innovations made it possible to build Liberty Ships far more quickly than had ever been done before. Over 2,700 Liberty Ships were built between 1943 and 1945, a far greater number than anyone ever thought possible." Arthur Dononvan.
          
          The first ship commissioned, prior to Pearl Harbor, took 244 days to build. The construction time was cut to 72 days in May of 1942. By August of 1942, construction time was down to 46 days. As a publicity stunt, Kaiser Shipbuilding built a Liberty ship in under 5 days from scratch, but the average time remained 6 weeks. At this time the average ship took 2 months to build.

          The revolutionary idea that was used was known as prefabricating, where all the pieces are there, you just have to connect the dots. These ships were built using a revolutionary design with revolutionary building techniques, such as welding.

          "To build 'em faster than they can sink 'em Steve Bechtel and John McCone revolutionized shipbuilding at Cal Ship on Terminal Island. Ships were prefabricated in sections elsewhere, moved to launching ways and assembled there. Thirty four ships were simultaneously under construction" SS Lane Victory Museum

          Another great revolution is the people involved in this change. It occured during wartime, a change in identity. People of different backgrounds, age, and especially genders, experienced massive changes in their lives; changes that would continue in their hearts long after the end of the war. This was the birth of many new identities that America that had not yet seen.

          For the first time, women across the world were learning to work as factory workers, nurses, and journalists. Many women even joined the army through an organization called the Women's Army Corps. WWII also brought about an increase in women as subjects to propaganda. Finally, women worked as drivers, farmers, mail delivery personnel, garbage collectors, builders, and mechanics.

          Rosie the Riveter was one of the women that changed the identities of women. She is the one on the posters saying We Can Do It!, showing her muscles. She was a women that worked on ships and her job was a riveter, which are like big nails to hold the ship together.
Another women that changed her identity was Wendy the Welder, who
was like Rosie but welded.


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Reciprocating steam engine
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Many ships being built
Other pages on this site:
(Jaffee p.18) credit NLSM
(Jaffee p.20) credit NLSM
(Jaffee p.33) credit NLSM
(Cooper p.9) credit NLSM

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