Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation

Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation

HMS Calder (K349) under construction as USS Formoe (DE-58), with USS Foss (DE-59) on right at Bethlehem Hingham Shipyard on the Weymouth Back River in Massachusetts
Formerly	Bethlehem Steel Corporation
Company type	Corporation
Industry	Shipbuilding
Founded	1905 (1905) in Quincy, Massachusetts, U.S.
Defunct	1997
Headquarters	Quincy, Massachusetts, U.S. , U.S.
Area served	United States
Products	Ships

Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Division was created in 1905 when the Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, acquired the San Francisco-based shipyard Union Iron Works.^[1][2] In 1917 it was incorporated as Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Limited.

The division's headquarters were moved to Quincy, Massachusetts, after acquiring the Fore River Shipyard in 1913.

In 1940, Bethlehem Shipbuilding was the largest of the "Big Three" U.S. shipbuilders that could build any ship,^[3] followed by Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock and New York Shipbuilding Corporation (New York Ship). Bethlehem expanded shortly before and during World War II as a result of the Long Range Shipbuilding Program and later the Emergency Shipbuilding program orchestrated by the United States Maritime Commission and the Two Ocean Navy program and its war-time successors by the military establishment.

In 1964, the now-corporate headquarters moved to Sparrows Point, Maryland, southeast of Baltimore, whose shipyard had been acquired in 1916.

The Quincy / Fore River yard was sold to General Dynamics Corporation in the mid-1960s, and closed in 1986. The Alameda Works Shipyard in California was closed by Bethlehem Steel in the early 1970s, while the San Francisco facility (former Union Iron Works) was sold to British Aerospace in the mid-1990s and survives today as BAE Systems San Francisco Ship Repair.

Bethlehem Steel ceased shipbuilding activities in 1997 in an attempt to preserve its core steelmaking operations.