The SS Josephine Shaw Lowell was a Liberty ship built at J.A. Jones Construction, Panama City, Florida, during World War II. The ship was named after Josephine Shaw Lowell, a Progressive Reform leader in the United States in the Nineteenth Century. The ship was laid down on 19 February 1944, under a Maritime Commission contract, and launched on 4 April 1944. On 15 January 1947, she was transferred to the Italian Government, which in turn sold her for $545,601.37 to Societe Italiana di Navigazione, Albaro, Genoa, Italy for commercial use. In 1963, was sold to Aegean Cia. Nav., Panama, and later in 1968, scrapped in Osaka, Japan.
It is estimated more than 300 materials containing asbestos were used on U.S. Navy ships before the dangers of asbestos became widely known. Exposure to asbestos aboard naval vessels caused many veterans to later develop lung cancer, asbestosis, and other serious asbestos-related conditions.
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