Duluth's Other Company Town
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DULUTH’S OTHER COMPANY TOWN The McDougall-Duluth Company, Riverside, and World War I Shipbuilding MATTHEW LAWRENCE DALEY n the morning of July 4, from the launching, joined represen- the tonnage sunk by submarines 1918, more than 3,000 citi- tatives from the nearby Gary, New mounted, shipping managers in the Ozens, workers, and dignitar- Duluth, Fond du Lac, and Morgan United States and the Allied nations ies gathered in Duluth’s Riverside Park neighborhoods in a celebratory grew increasingly alarmed.2 Because neighborhood at the McDougall- march. The Lake Helen, while not European shipyards were filled with Duluth Company shipyard to share the first wartime vessel launched in military orders and repairs, opportu- in a celebration of patriotism and the Twin Ports or on the Great Lakes, nities emerged for American yards. wartime production. On the dais, marked the high point of the war This opening drew the attention of a Gertrude Barnes, daughter of the effort in Riverside’s yard. notable Great Lakes figure and led to company’s president Julius H. The approaching World War I the creation of the new Duluth com- Barnes, waited to christen a hull centennial has sparked renewed pany and neighborhood. decorated in ribbons and bunting public interest and scholarship. Most Scottish-born Capt. Alexander and painted with the motto “Liberty. discussion of the home front has McDougall found his greatest fame For. Ever.” Security at the normally focused on the rush to convert civil- during the 1890s as the builder of closed facility was tight, the result of ian industry to wartime production whalebacks, unusual ships for the fevered visions of a fanatical German and build new facilities. Key to this iron-ore trade. But the combined sympathizer planting a bomb.1 endeavor was the federal govern- impact of the Panic of 1893, rapid Though planned as a brief, for- ment’s Emergency Fleet Corporation changes in technology, and the mal ceremony, the event called for (EFC), which played a major role in consolidation of the Carnegie and some public celebration. The Duluth planning, financing, and managing Rockefeller steel, ore, and vessel em- News-Tribune presented an award the construction of merchant ves- pires had pushed McDougall out of for productivity to C. E. Dion and sels at giant new shipyards, which his Duluth shipyard by 1898. With his riveting crew, and a congratula- required vast worker-housing devel- his entrepreneurial drive and con- tory telegram from the director of opments. The nearly exclusive atten- nections from 30 years of work on the Emergency Fleet Corporation tion to the EFC’s East Coast yards the Great Lakes intact, McDougall was read to the crowd. McDougall- has overshadowed the contribution returned in 1899 to his childhood Duluth’s general manager A. Miller of those on the Great Lakes, includ- home of Collingwood, Ontario, to McDougall, son of company co- ing McDougall- Duluth. Its founders start a shipyard with funding from founder Alexander McDougall, had a vision of a shipyard free from the city’s Board of Trade. Colling- spoke, praising the war effort and tense labor-management relations wood Shipbuilding utilized his ex- the skill of the yard’s workers. At and supported by a comfortable, har- perience in steel construction and 9:30 a.m. the launching crew set the monious company town. To achieve produced conventional vessels for the hull on its way, the shipyard band this goal, company directors merged lakes trade.3 played, and Gertrude Barnes shat- wartime labor policies with their own During World War I, increased tered a bottle against the hull, for- welfare capitalism and opportunism. demand for grain from the Great mally christening the 256-foot vessel Plains, along with higher railroad the Lake Helen. Within minutes, the shipping rates, boosted traffic on the yard crew began to put in place the hen World War I newly rebuilt New York State Barge keel and bottom plates of a new ship. began in 1914, Canal system. McDougall set out to Stirred by music from the Fourth WAmerican exporters create a revolutionary design for use Minnesota Regiment band, the saw their business become vulner- crowd, although soaked by the wave able to disruptions in international Dr. Daley, an associate professor of shipping. Overnight, insurance history at Grand Valley State Univer- facing: Launching the Lake Helen, rates increased dramatically, which sity, Allendale, Michigan, also serves July 4, 1918, the high point of the war helped send markets into recession. as curator of the Fr. Edward J. Dowl- ing, S.J., Marine Historical Collection effort at Duluth’s Riverside shipyard As the war dragged on into 1916 and at the University of Detroit Mercy. He is working on a biography of Captain Publication of this article was supported, in part, by the Ken and Nina Rothchild Endowment Alexander McDougall. Fund for Business History. Spring 2013 177 on that waterway. He approached 1918, the war ended before its first two potential investors, Duluth busi- vessel entered service. Meanwhile, the nessmen and grain merchants Ward Robert L. Barnes had commenced op- Ames and Julius Barnes. They agreed eration on the Great Lakes during the to McDougall’s proposal and in De- spring of 1917. Despite McDougall’s cember 1915 created the McDougall- hopes for the design, no contracts Duluth Company to build his canal were forthcoming.8 Looking to secure boats.4 his investment, Julius Barnes took McDougall set up shop where on a greater role in managing the he had built his first whaleback in company. 1888, a primitive shipyard on the Born in 1873 in Little Rock, sandbar at Fifteenth Avenue West Arkansas, Barnes had moved with and Railroad Street. Construction United States Shipping Board logo his family to St. Cloud in 1880 and commenced on August 20, 1916, Duluth in 1884. He went to work with McDougall providing day-to- squared-off appearance with few selling newspapers, became involved day management. Work proceeded fancy angles.7 with the YMCA, and eventually rose quickly and the first vessel, named The new system worked best in to door boy for the city’s Board of Robert L. Barnes for Julius’s son, yards designed for large-scale produc- Trade. He joined the grain business was launched on December 16 after tion, such as the huge start-up plants of Ward Ames Sr. in 1890, became crews cut through a foot of ice in the at Bristol and Hog Island, Pennsylva- a partner by age 26, and started his harbor.5 nia, and Camden, New Jersey. Each own ventures such as Klearflax Linen Meanwhile, the war in Europe faced enormous challenges: con- Looms, based in West Duluth. This ground on. President Woodrow Wil- structing the plant, organizing suppli- classic self-made-man background son and his secretary of the treasury, ers, and addressing critical shortages shaped his outlook and carried him William G. McAdoo, determined in manpower and housing. Though into public service. During the war, that both private funding and extant the Hog Island facility broke ground he served on the U.S. Grain Board yards were insufficient to build and in late 1917 to great fanfare and laid and as a food commissioner under operate the number of vessels re- the keel for its first ship in February Herbert Hoover, a long-time friend.9 quired. They persuaded Congress to pass what became the Shipping Act of 1916, which created the United States Shipping Board (USSB) and its public-authority entity, the Emer- gency Fleet Corporation.6 The EFC established assembly- line methods for building a steel merchant fleet. Traditional ship- building entailed shaping each piece on site. Under the new pro- gram, steel mills supplied identi- cal, punched hull plates ready for mass assembly, thereby reducing work hours as well as the number of rivets and other materials needed. The resulting ships had a heavily Julius Barnes: businessman, investor, and active co-owner of the McDougall- Duluth Company 178 Minnesota History Drawing on his connections, Shipbuilding Company in Lorain, land and investor disputes. Not until Barnes persuaded the manager of the Ohio, led the calls for the EFC to con- 1905 did banker Jed L. Washburn New York-based Clinchfi eld Naviga- sider inland yards for contracts. Along clear the land title to form the River- tion Company to act as an intermedi- with McDougall-Duluth, two com- side Land Company. In 1910 he sold ary with international vessel owners panies in Superior, Wisconsin, also the standing structures to the Duluth and agents. From this, McDougall- began constructing EFC vessels.12 Iron and Metal Works.14 Duluth obtained its fi rst job in By the spring of 1918, the EFC The area received new attention March 1917, when a Swedish fi rm had decided to increase production in 1907 when U.S. Steel decided to contracted for a vessel, the Maski, not through new yards but by assist- construct a steel mill nearby. In 1914, at a price of $450,000. Using its ing existing fi rms to expand. To that a year before the mill fi nally began $54,000 advance, the shipyard pur- chased additional tools and materials and also began constructing “Ship No. 3” on speculation. The company Government contracts allowed did not wait long for a buyer. The the company to move beyond the British government had contracted for nearly 700,000 gross tons from a cramped and fl ood-prone confi nes number of Great Lakes shipyards, and of the Railroad Street yard. it purchased the new hull. By the end of May, the Clinchfi eld connection yielded fi ve more orders from several French vessel lines.10 end, new contracts offered a “cost- operating, Duluth’s fi rst company Starting with the Maski, plus” system that covered expenses town, Morgan Park, opened.