United States. National Park Service

“ Steam technology demanded a whole new set of skills of Charlestown’s mechanics. When the steam battery Fulton II docked there in 1839, the yard could repair only the vessel’s wooden components, having to contract work on the engine to local companies. But by 1845 yard personnel could fully service the screw sloop Princeton. While some carpenters may have made the transition, it is more likely that most of those working with steam machinery had a background in the field.
As the yard adapted to the new age, it underwent a decade of modernization and quickened production preceding the Civil War. ”

“ The first three warships ordered for the infant U.S. Navy in 1794—one of them the Boston-built Constitution—were frigates unlike any others. Naval strategists knew the nation could afford to build only a few vessels, so they had to be formidable warships. They were inspired by French “razees,” ships-of-the-line (see page 14) that had one gun deck removed, transforming them into large, heavily armed frigates. The sharp lines of Constitution’s hull gave it a frigate’s speed, but in size and stoutness it was comparable to a small ship-of-the-line. ”

“ Until World War I, jobs connected with supply would remain more stable than those related to construction and repair. In the late 1880s and ’90s, managers found ways to transfer men in the latter trades to other divisions within the yard in order to keep their services on call. But in the early ’80s the yard could find virtually no work for men skilled in the craft of wooden shipbuilding—formerly the elite of the workforce. After Virginia and the other vessels had been turned into stacks of wood, those who had done the work were sent home. ”

“ A shell could open a gaping hole in a heretofore impervious wooden hull. By 1860 France and then Britain had begun building ironclads. In Britain, especially, the rising cost of diminishing timber supplies was another incentive to experiment with iron, both as armor and for structural elements of the hull. But in the United States, wood was still cheaper than iron. Also, though the country had earlier experimented with ironcladding, the Navy resisted the new technology, putting emphasis on speed rather than armor. But it quickly made up for lost time after the beginning of the Civil War. ”

“ Technological change transformed many of the yard’s oldest trades by the 1930s, while the growing size and complexity of ships required more and more workers. Such large government employers as shipyards were seen by policy makers as places to both promote economic stability and save money. Early in the Depression these two goals were addressed, respectively, with lower and upper limits for each yard’s workforce—at Charlestown, 1,500 and 1,800. The workforce stayed generally within these limits until 1935, when it began growing, reaching some 5,000 workers by late 1939. ”

“ Even without the shell-torn hulls and shredded superstructures, war is hard on ships. Pushed faster, farther, and longer under less than ideal conditions, they needed more than routine maintenance. And on top of the already demanding schedule of ship construction, repair, and maintenance, other tasks competed for time and resources. Yard workers outfitted naval vessels built at other yards. They converted private vessels and old naval ships to wartime uses. They manufactured turbines and thousands of tons of die-lock chain (see pages 60-61) . ”

“ Independence, for example, flagship of the first Mediterranean squadron, had been a receiving ship at Mare Island Navy Yard in California since 1857.
It was not only romantic tradition that kept naval shipbuilding in its antebellum condition. Burning coal in warships cost money; the wind, if not as dependable, was free. Sails continued to make good sense on long-distance cruises. America still had no foreign coaling stations to support a distant steam fleet, and isolationist sentiment hindered their acquisition. ”

“ Steam engineering had traveled a long road of acceptance in the conservative Navy. By 1850, the year the Charlestown Navy Yard built its first steamer, Great Britain had built or converted from sail some 25 propeller and paddlewheel steam warships. The U.S. Navy had launched only seven. Steam engines were still considered novelties by many old Navy men—at best auxiliary power, at worst dirty and undependable nuisances that called for machine tenders rather than sailors. ”

“ The yard offers the visitor a captivating glimpse into the activities that for nearly two centuries supported the United States Navy. Here on the home front, thousands of civilian workers and navy personnel built, repaired, and supplied warships from the majestic sailing vessels of the early 19th century to the powerful steel navy of the 20th century. ”

“ This state of affairs, which intensified in the 20th century, provided Charlestown Navy Yard with a new role after World War II: lengthening or transforming the careers of old ships, otherwise destined for mothballs, through modernization and conversion. Modernization meant updating old electrical, propulsion, or weapons systems or performing structural surgery without altering the vessel’s function. This ranged from installing a sonar dome on the bottom of the hull to dismantling the entire superstructure and building a new one. ”

“ Charlestown found a new postwar role as a place where old vessels were remade from the inside out, transformed into modern warships. Old did not necessarily mean long in years. In the 1950s, ships that had performed admirably in the late war were being left behind in a world of accelerating technological change. Charlestown extended their careers, installing state-of-the-art electronics. When advances in missile technology opened a new era in naval weapons and strategy, Charlestown played a leading role in the changeover. ”

“ The Navy kept its faith in battleships until their vulnerability to air power and the superiority of aircraft carriers as attack weapons were demonstrated in World War II.
Although a succession of battleships, cruisers, submarines, and other vessels were now being laid down, Charlestown didn’t immediately reap the benefits. The majority of the warships launched between 1883 and 1905 were built by contract in private yards, and Charlestown built none of them. For most of the 1890s, the yard continued to be primarily a manufacturing facility. ”

“ Navy to reverse direction without turning around. The Charlestown yard built five double-enders—the biggest class constructed there during the war and, with those built at other yards, the biggest class of ships produced in the United States before World War I.
The Charlestown yard had in 1858 initiated its first machinist apprenticeship, acknowledging the inevitable transformation of the yard’s work. Steam had somewhat prepared the way for the yard’s artisans to work with iron: those already trained as boilermakers could adapt their skills to ironcladding. ”

“ As enlistments and competition from private industry depleted the pool of male workers during World War II, the Navy looked to the large numbers of women who wanted to do their part for the war effort. Women had long worked at the Charlestown yard, although almost exclusively (except during World War I) in clerical positions. But beginning in 1942 the easing of state workweek restrictions for women hastened their recruitment into the yard’s manufacturing and traditional shipyard shops. ”

“ The Navy’s oldest commissioned warship, United States Ship Constitution and the Charlestown Navy Yard share a long history. Constructed in Boston between 1794 and 1797, “Old Ironsides” was repaired and supplied here many times during its active career. U.S.S. Constitution was permanently berthed in Charlestown in 1897 and has since been open to the public for tours. Like all wooden vessels, Constitution needs constant attention. ”

“ More than the skilled craftsmen, the laborers’ jobs depended on the amount of work at the yard, but most of the workforce awaited the coming of cold weather with some anxiety. The yard’s practice was to retain only as many people as it could keep working, and bad weather sharply reduced the volume of work. The completion of a new ship or of a major repair job also meant the letting go of large numbers of workers, at least until the next job. ”

“ During the long era of wooden sailing ships, when naval technology changed only gradually over the decades, a warship’s service lasted as long as the materials from which it was built. But as the pace of change quickened in the mid-19th century with the advent of steam propulsion and iron hulls, a vessel quickly grew obsolete without continual incorporation of the latest technology. ”

“ Charlestown began building large steel vessels in 1915-20, the period depicted below. Stronger per pound than wood or iron, steel enabled naval architects to design bigger ships that could carry more armament. Steel was also better suited to bearing the massive weight of steam engines and boilers. The structural members of early steel vessels were riveted together, with limited gas welding in use by World War I. Shipyard artisans traded auger, saw, and mallet for pneumatic drill, gas cutting torch, and pneumatic rivet gun. ”

“ Boston, wrote Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert to President John Adams, from “the natural strength of its situation [meaning its large, deep, and defensible harbor] , the great number of ship carpenters in its vicinity, and of its seamen, must always remain a building place and place of rendezvous for our navy of the first importance.” Thus in 1800 the Charlestown Navy Yard was established.
For most of its history Charlestown’s primary mission was to keep the fleet sailing. That is not to say the yard wasn’t a shipbuilder; it built more than 200 warships over its 174 years of operation. ”

“ Constitution settles on dry dock blocks in preparation for its 1990s restoration.
A view off the bow of the venerable warship.
Caulkers use traditional caulking hammers to seal the gun decks.
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The World War II destroyer U.S.S. Cassin Young (DD-793) reflects a very different kind of sea power than does Constitution. Yet both warships, constructed 150 years apart, served much the same purpose. Like frigates, destroyers (known as the workhorses of the modern navy) are smaller and less powerful than the heaviest warships, but they are fast and remarkably versatile. ”

“ As in every war, technology helped shape strategy in the Civil War and strategic considerations helped determine how new technologies were applied. The Navy’s major role in the war effort was to blockade some 3,500 miles of Southern coastline. The South’s blockade runners were typically the most advanced examples of British shipbuilding, steam-powered sidewheelers that were often iron- or steel-hulled. ”

“ Another way of employing steam power for propulsion was needed. The propeller (called a “screw”) was the answer, allowing naval steam to come into its own. Construction of the prototype screw sloop Princeton began in 1841, before America’s first sidewheel warships even went into service. The Navy built only eight more deepwater sidewheelers before the famous 1854 class of six screw steamers (led by the Charlestown-built Merrimack) made the cumbersome vessels a footnote in naval history. ”

“ The demand for workers and the boosted war economy drove up wages. No doubt prompted by this incentive and by the exemption policy, some 240,000 men applied for work at the yard in 1917-18. But while Charlestown didn’t lack for applicants, filling the most skilled positions was a continuing problem. To remedy this (and to help workers gain exemptions) , the yard cut a year from the term of apprenticeship and established a trade school to train unskilled workers as mechanics. ”

“ Civil Service reforms of the ’90s had already gone a long way toward making merit, not political advantage, the criterion for hiring and firing. And now, in the hour of war, the Navy wanted to keep its shipyard workers. In the months before the United States entered the conflict, officials had worried that employees swept up in the popular sentiment for preparedness would enlist. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels declared it the “patriotic duty” of the workers to remain at the yard, asserting that “their services to their country ... ”

“ The United States, they reasoned, was a growing industrial power with increasing overseas interests, and some—among them Mahan disciple and future Assistant Secretary of the Navy and President Theodore Roosevelt—believed the nation should have a navy befitting its role, one able to open markets, protect those economic interests, and project U.S. power. ”

“ Wooden ships under both sail and steam power continued to fight the Civil War’s deepwater battles, but Dahlgren’s words came true after the war. The evolving iron, and then steel, warship incorporated elements from both ironclads: the deeper hull and superstructure of Virginia and, rather than multiple-gun broadsides, a few large guns in revolving Monitor-type turrets that allowed the guns to be trained without turning the entire vessel. ”

“ Each technology had its partisans: the sidewheel provided greater combat maneuverability, was suited to riverine warfare, and presented no problems of leakage, as did the screw’s underwater shaft hole. However, the exposed wheels were vulnerable during combat, ate up deck space needed for guns, hindered sail handling, and created more drag than a screw when the vessel was under sail. The launching of the screw warships H.M.S. Rattler in Britain and U.S.S. Princeton in the United States in 1843 signaled the coming ascendancy of screw propulsion. ”

“ As steam engines grew more efficient in the 1880s and ’90s, sailing rigs were made smaller and vestigial masts served mainly as radio antennae and platforms for directing big guns. But a revolution in steam technology sent reciprocating engines the way of masts on most large naval vessels. Steam turbines, which were much more efficient at sustained high speeds, were developed in the 1880s in Europe and used in 1905 on Dreadnought. ”