The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 7, Issue 1, Winter 2018 | Page 21

The Second Gold Rush: How Wartime Shipbuilding Shaped the San
Francisco East Bay
Jeff Ballard
The December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor galvanized America and
destroyed any illusion that the United States could remain neutral in this Second
World War. At no time before, or since, has American society organized to such a
degree. The American population mobilized on an unprecedented scale for a
common purpose—victory over fascism in Germany, Italy, and Japan. The attack
on the Hawaiian Islands brought the war to American shores and proved that the
United States mainland was not beyond the reach of our enemy. The Atlantic and
Pacific oceans, which had once cushioned the United States from the ever-
expanding conflict, were now an obstacle to American men and material entering
the fight in Europe and Asia.
Enter industrialist and construction magnate Henry J. Kaiser and his
revolutionary prefabricated shipbuilding techniques; with it, Kaiser could build
ships in weeks instead of years, as the task had previously taken. By 1945, Kaiser,
with partner Todd-California Shipyards, had built 1,490 ships at its California,
Oregon, and Washington shipyards from a budget of $4 billion, or $55.4 billion
2018 dollars. 1 Kaiser’s manufacturing innovation coupled with vastly improved
antisubmarine warfare techniques meant that in the fall of 1943, the tonnage of
new ships built each month exceeded allied losses. 2 This feat is undoubtedly the
ultimate achievement of the American war effort on the “Home Front.” 3
World War II was a powerful agent of geographical, economic, and social
change in the San Francisco East Bay communities of Richmond and Oakland. As
one of the primary shipbuilding regions in the nation, its wartime experience
permanently transformed the East Bay. War migration changed the racial
demographics of the East Bay making it younger, more racially diverse and, for the
period under study, female-dominated. Prefabricated shipbuilding techniques
shifted the demand from skilled to unskilled workers and caused a fundamental
reorganization of labor unions like the colossal American Federation of Labor
(AFL). Finally, the corporate welfare programs, intended to raise morale and
increase wartime production, resulted in a legacy of enduring social institutions
that Americans take for granted today.
Nearly 25 million Americans moved to another county or state in search
of a defense job between 1940 and 1947. 4 The West Coast cities of Seattle, San
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