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"Our Clyde, a noble waterway for the fleets of nations."
-- Harper's New Monthly Magazine, April 1878
You are standing on the waterfront where the American iron and steel shipbuilding industry was born and grew to maturity in the shipyards of Harlan & Hollingsworth and Pusey & Jones. Harlan & Hollingsworth launched their first iron steamboats in 1844, Pusey & Jones in 1849; by 1857, the tonnage launched by these two companies exceeded the combined total of the rest of the nation. By 1870, the area's waterway, the Delaware River, with its great shipbuilding centers of Wilmington, Philadelphia, Camden and Chester, was known as the "American Clyde" and compared to the great British shipyards of the River Clyde in Scotland. |