Louis George Baumler collection

Collection, MC/65

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: 1921 – 1945
Quantity: 4 bound volumes, 8 objects
Language of Materials: English.
Call Number: MC/65

Administrative/Biographical History: Louis George Baumler lived in New York City, worked as a carpenter and was employed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Ernest William Gordon lived in New York City, worked as a plumber and was employed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard was established in 1801 and served as one of the nation’s premier naval shipbuilding and repair facilities for the next 165 years. During this time, more than 230 naval warships and auxiliary vessels were launched and over 5,000 were serviced. The first ship produced at the Yard was the USS Ohio in 1817, and the first dry dock was completed in 1851. During the Civil War, the Yard employed 6,000 people, and by 1938 that number had risen to 10,000. At the height of World War II, the Yard was New York state’s largest industrial enterprise, with 70,000 reporting for work daily. By the time the US Navy vacated the premises, the property had grown to encompass 291 acres, with 270 buildings, 24 miles of railroad tracks, 23,278 linear feet of crane tracks, 18 miles of paved roads, 16,495 feet of berthing space, 9 piers, 6 dry docks, and 22 shops housing 98 different trades.

In 1966, the Navy decommissioned the Yard and the property began a second life as an industrial park. The City of New York purchased the site from the federal government for private commercial use, establishing a non-profit organization to transform the site into a job-generating industrial campus. The Yard has been managed by the mission driven Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC), which made a commitment to reinvest in the Yard’s infrastructure and diversify its tenant base beyond heavy industry to also include design, 2 manufacturing, and art, while reestablishing the Yard as a leading national and international model of urban manufacturing growth. Today, it is a diverse ecosystem of over 400 businesses and more than 8,000 employees, the product of years of careful planning, fundraising, and political partnership. The Yard continues to evolve, building on its history as the economic heart of Brooklyn.
Scope and Content: This collection consists of four bound items and 8 objects. Of the bound items, there is a copy of
American Machinists Library for 1921, The Bluejackets’ Manual from 1943, Practical Mathematics from
1945, and a pocket-sized, military-issued New Testament Psalms, which is undated. There are also four
gold buttons, three pins from the Industrial Union of Marine & Shipbuilding Workers of America, and an
over-sized wooden box labeled “Vibration Section M-96.”

Access Points: Labor and Yard Workers, Waterfront
Administrative Information: Related Lots: 2018.003
Access and Use: Conditions Governing Access This collection is open for research.; Physical Access One item in this collection is fragile and extremely heavy.; Conditions Governing Reproduction Material in this collection is made available for use in research, teaching, and private
study, pursuant to U.S. Copyright law. The use must assume full responsibility for any use of the material,
including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced material. Please
see the BNYDC Archives’ Policy on Access and Use for more information about reproductions and
permissions to publish. Any material used for academic research or otherwise should be credited using
the citation below.; Preferred Citation Published citations should take the following form: Identification of item, date (if known); Louis George Baumler collection; MC/65; Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation Archives, Brooklyn, NY.