More work came to the yard in 1917-18 than in any other comparable period in its history before World War II. Some 450 vessels were serviced during those two years. In addition Charlestown was a supply depot and embarkation point. In all, an average of 50 ships a day arrived at or departed from the yard during the war.
By 1918 some 10,000 skilled workers, laborers, and clericals worked at Charlestown. Reflecting the growth of the labor movement over the last three decades, many of them belonged to trade unions (although they could neither strike nor be represented by the unions in wage negotiations). Women working at the yard were mostly naval yeomen, but a few worked as radio and telephone operators, radio electricians, and ropewalk machine tenders.
Yard employees worked in 17 trade shops, the names of which characterized the needs of modern steel shipbuilding: Shipfitters (including riveters, drillers, welders, sheet metal workers); Electrical; Pattern (for cast metals); Chain; Copper/Pipefitting; and other skills employed in raising a steel ship.
Some of the old familiar shops survived in reduced or altered roles. The sail loft now produced mostly canvas bags, pea jackets, and hammocks. The riggers loft had become a versatile shop responsible for an array of shipyard tasks. They still worked aloft on stacks and steel masts; directed dry docking and crane operations; prepared shipways for launchings; dove beneath ships in hardhat diving suits; and continued to do the traditional rigger’s handiwork, such as the braided rope fenders that protected ships’ hulls and the fancy leatherwork and ropework still common on naval vessels. The workers in the joiner shop worked on the small wooden boats built at the yard, but spent much of their time making shipboard furniture. The ropewalk continued to turn out the large quantities of rope still needed on steel ships.
[Illustration: _These young women were working as civilian clerks for the Navy when the U.S. entered World War I. Overnight they became Yeomen-F (female) naval personnel. (Yeomen is the naval term for clerical workers.)_]
[Illustration: _Joiners were skilled workers in wood and traditionally the elite of the yard workforce. Even in the early days of steel ships, they remained among the highest paid of the workers. Here joiners are photographed in their shop, about 1897._]