The SS John W. Brown is a Liberty ship built in 1942 by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation at their Bethlehem-Fairfield yard at Baltimore, Maryland. The ship operated as merchant ships of the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II and later she became a vocational high school training ship in New York City for many years. The ship was named after the Canadian-born American prominent labor union leader, John W. Brown. On 15 October 1942, the SS John W. Brown departed New York on her maiden voyage, where she would unload her cargo for delivery overland to the Soviet Union. After returning to the U.S., she became the first of 220 Liberty ships to undergo conversion into a "Limited Capacity Troopship" capable of transporting up to 650 troops or prisoners-of-war. Nearly every ship commissioned between 1930 and about 1975 contained several tons of asbestos-containing materials. ACMs were used in boilers, turbines, pumps, gaskets, valves, cement, adhesives and pipe coverings. Navy veterans who manned these ships or repaired them in shipyards were prime candidates for asbestos-related diseases. Currently, the SS John W. Brown provides an educational and historical opportunity for the public, as a museum ship and cruise ship berthed at Clinton Street Pier 1 in Baltimore Harbor, Maryland.
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