The company was developed in 1916 by
Sun Oil Company under the leadership of
J. Howard Pew and the Pew family, with a view to producing tankers for the delivery of petroleum products from the Sun
Texas wells to their refinery at
Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania. The launching took place off the banks of the
Delaware River in heavy rainfall as it was felt that delaying the launch would bring bad luck to the ship and yard. In the 1920s, it had become a large shipyard that built tankers for the
Standard Oil Company. In 1936, the Pew family offered
John J. McClure and his Republican political machine control over hiring at Sun Shipbuilding as patronage to lure him out of retirement after the scandal involving the Rum Ring Trial. By the start of
World War II, Sun was the largest among the country's five largest shipyards, with eight
slipways. At its peak, the company employed more than 40,000 workers at four shipyards. During World War II, Sun Shipbuilding was the largest private-sector employer of African-Americans in the United States and controversially segregated many of the black workers to yard #4. It also built hospital ships, cargo ships, and escort carriers for the
United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM). On 27 September 1941, it contributed one of the 14 ships launched on
Liberty Fleet Day: SS
Surprise. Sun Shipbuilding originally had a contract to build 30 of the C4 ships. MARCOM prioritized Sun's expertise in building urgently needed T2-SE-A1 tankers and withdrew 20 C4s from Sun and assigned them to Kaiser's Richmond, California yard. The Sun ships, designated C4-S-B2, became
War Shipping Administration troopships operated by commercial agents or Navy hospital ships. The yard was also notable for its refinement of the all-welded ship during the war. By 1945, 40% of the US tanker fleet had been built there. One of them, sailing under the name
SS El Faro, was lost in a hurricane on October 1, 2015, while steaming from Jacksonville, Florida, to San Juan, Puerto Rico. On 4 November 1972, Sun launched the
Glomar Explorer, designed and built under a cover story concerning deep-sea resource extraction but in reality for the CIA to raise a sunken Soviet submarine lost in 1968 in the Pacific. The ship's construction required a purpose-built
crane ship,
Sun 800, to lift its 630-ton
gimbal into place.
Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Company The company was sold to Pennsylvania Shipbuilding in 1982, and closed in 1989. The last ship launched from the yard was the
John B. Waterman (hull number 679), a
Roll-on/roll-off vessel although it was delivered later under Pennsylvania Shipbuilding's ownership. ==Legacy==