Kaiser Shipyards

The Kaiser Shipyards were seven major shipbuilding yards located on the United States west coast during World War II. Kaiser ranked 20th among U.S. corporations in the value of wartime production contracts.^[1] The shipyards were owned by the Kaiser Shipbuilding Company, a creation of American industrialist Henry J. Kaiser (1882–1967), who established the shipbuilding company around 1939 in order to help meet the construction goals set by the United States Maritime Commission for merchant shipping.

Four of the Kaiser Shipyards were located in Richmond, California, and were called the Richmond Shipyards. Three other shipyards were located in the Pacific Northwest along the Columbia and Willamette rivers: the Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation and the Swan Island Shipyard in Portland, Oregon, and the Vancouver Shipyard in Vancouver, Washington.^[2]

Henry Kaiser was known for developing new methods of shipbuilding, which allowed his yards to outproduce other similar facilities and build 1,490 ships, 27 percent of the total Maritime Commission construction. Kaiser's ships were completed in two-thirds the time and a quarter the cost of the average of all other shipyards. Liberty ships were typically assembled in a little over two weeks, and one in less than five days.^[3]

Kaiser Shipyards shut down at the end of the war. The Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park was dedicated October 25, 2000 on the site of one of the shipyards in Richmond.

^ Peck, Merton J. & Scherer, Frederic M. The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis (1962) Harvard Business School p. 619.
^ Herman, pp. 209, 269, 271, 275.
^ Herman, pp. 176–91.

[1] Peck, Merton J. & Scherer, Frederic M. The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis (1962) Harvard Business School p. 619.

[2] Herman, pp. 209, 269, 271, 275.

[3] Herman, pp. 176–91.

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