Image: Google Satellite View,
2017, accessed 19 July 2017.
Newport News Shipbuilding, a private shipyard where the Public Works
Administration financed the construction of
two aircraft carriers — the
Yorktown and the
Enterprise —
in the 1930s, which played key roles in the Pacific in World War II.
According to references below, the New Deal also was responsible significant
improvements to the shipyard itself.
References
- Building
the Navy's Bases in World War II: History of the Bureau of Yards and Docks
and the Civil Engineer Corps, 1940-1946, Part II, The Continental Bases,
Department of the Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks. Accessed at
www.history.navy.mil 20 July 2017.
Many millions of dollars, referred to in this document as "public works".
Whether this qualifies as New Deal is fine point; it's public money spent
labor and material to improve existing shipyards. In any case
there are two explicit references to the WPA in the document; the one on
page 60 stating that in 1938 WPA Projects were added as a new subdivision of
the federal Bureau of Yards and Docks. And on p.24 it notes that "such work
as could be done" in 1935 was financed (in part) by "funds provided in FDR's
1935
Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, which was New Deal legislation.
- Part
II of the same document, p.168: "a considerable amount of work ... was
accomplished during this period, partly under naval public work
appropriations, but principally through allocations from National
Industrial Recovery Administration, Civil Works Administration, Works
Progress Administration, and Public Works Administration appropriations
for unemployment relief during the Depression. Subsequent events
demonstrated beyond question the wisdom of this constructive and effective
use of relief funds. Without the rehabilitation, modernization, and
improvements that were accomplished in this manner, the navy yards would
have been critically unprepared for the emergency [Pearl Harbor]."
- Fix, William A., Always Good Ships: Histories of Newport News Ships (1986), 387 pages.
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