Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard Inc.
In 1905 the Bethlehem Steel Corporation purchased a shipyard in San Francisco, California and soon after established the Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Division. The company quickly became the top ship builder in the United States and opened facilities in more than a dozen locations.
The Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard was built in Baltimore, Maryland in 1940. It was constructed to produce vessels that would be used during World War II, and many of the ships became a permanent part of the Merchant Marine fleet. At that time German submarines were destroying cargo vessels at a dramatic rate, and new ships were needed as quickly as possible to continue with the overseas transportation of goods, military equipment and troops. Baltimore's shipyard produced nearly 400 ships, and did so quickly and efficiently. The layout of the ships were very basic and based on a design that was made for the mass production of vessels during World War I. People often referred to these ships as ''Ugly Ducklings", but they were highly respected for being functional and easy to produce.
By 1941 the first vessel built at the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard was put out to sea. The SS Patrick Henry took 244 days to complete, and the workers began to develop faster and better methods to produce a large number of vessels in a short time. Eventually the process was trimmed down to a remarkable 41 day period. Not only did the actual ship building time improve, the quality of the vessels drastically increased. They were made to be faster and more maneuverable in order to avoid enemy submarines.
During the time that the Fairfield Shipyard was active, one of the materials that were commonly used at the work site was asbestos. The mineral was included as the base for insulation products and several other goods because it helped make them strong, long lasting and resistant to even the highest temperatures. It also comes with a then unknown feature - it is a natural toxin that can cause serious health problems and develop into respiratory disorders, lung cancer and the incurable mesothelioma.
Because asbestos usage was so common in the 1940's, anyone who worked at the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard or sailed on a ship that was built there faced the very real possibility of being exposed to the toxins contained in the material. Workers could easily inhale tiny dust particles of the mineral that would settle in their respiratory system and slowly begin to damage healthy tissue. This danger was eventually discovered and asbestos use became strictly regulated, but during the years when the Baltimore based shipyard was in operation the mineral was present in large quantities and could have negatively affected any of the several thousand people who worked there.
Last modified: December 09, 2009.
