Building Lives and Ships

Carpenters and riggers working on a vessel at the Virginia Shipbuilding Corporation (Courtesy of Library of Congress)

The majority of Scandinavians who worked at the Virginia Shipbuilding Corporation in the late 1910s and early 1920s were single men, probably with experience in shipyards elsewhere in the U.S. These immigrants were typically in their twenties, and did not live with their families but with other workers and/or immigrants. The 1920 US Census shows that most of them were skilled or semi-skilled workers; the shipyard needed carpenters, regulators, or riggers. Others were bolters, mechanists, riveters, and boil makers.  As seen in the 1920 US Census, Scandinavians might have been foreigners, but when it came to ships, they were natives. They brought their talents to the United States.