Editing World War II Home Front (section)

== Industrial Mobilization ==

Philadelphia's diverse industrial base proved ideally suited for war production. The Philadelphia Navy Yard, which had built ships since the early republic, expanded dramatically to become one of the nation's largest naval facilities. At its peak, the Navy Yard employed over 40,000 workers building battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, and smaller vessels. The yard completed 53 ships during the war, including the battleship Wisconsin, while repairing and maintaining hundreds of others. The shipyards that had languished during the Depression now operated three shifts daily, working through nights and weekends to meet production quotas that seemed impossible but were somehow achieved.<ref name="weigley">{{cite book |last=Weigley |first=Russell F. |title=Philadelphia: A 300-Year History |year=1982 |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York}}</ref>

Beyond shipbuilding, Philadelphia factories produced virtually every type of war material. The Frankford Arsenal, already the Army's primary ammunition facility, expanded production to manufacture artillery shells, small arms ammunition, and other ordnance by the millions. Budd Company built military vehicles and aircraft components. The textile mills of Kensington, which had declined during the Depression, found new life producing uniforms, tents, and other equipment. Baldwin Locomotive Works built tanks. Smaller factories made components, parts, and supplies that fed into the vast production chain. Philadelphia's economic output during the war exceeded anything in its history, demonstrating industrial capacity that the Depression had hidden but not destroyed.<ref name="lichtenstein">{{cite book |last=Lichtenstein |first=Nelson |title=Labor's War at Home: The CIO in World War II |year=1982 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge}}</ref>