Henry J. Kaiser

Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882 – August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known for his shipbuilding and construction projects, then later for his involvement in fostering modern American health care. Prior to World War II, Kaiser was involved in the construction industry; his company was one of those that built the Hoover Dam. He established the Kaiser Shipyards, which built Liberty ships during World War II, after which he formed Kaiser Aluminum and Kaiser Steel. Kaiser organized Kaiser Permanente health care for his workers and their families. He led Kaiser-Frazer followed by Kaiser Motors, automobile companies known for the safety of their designs. Kaiser was involved in large construction projects such as civic centers and dams, and invested in real estate, later moving into television broadcasting with Kaiser Broadcasting.

Kaiser was born on May 9, 1882, in Sprout Brook, New York, the youngest of four children and the only son of Franz (a shoemaker) and Anna Marie (née Yops) Kaiser, ethnic German immigrants. His father, who later anglicized his name to Frank, came from Hanau in Hesse and emigrated to the United States in 1872, at about the age of thirty. He settled in Canajoharie, in upstate New York, where he was taken in by the Yops family—fellow emigrants from Steinheim who farmed in the area—and there met their daughter Anna Marie, later known as Mary. The couple married on January 5, 1873, and settled a few miles away in Sprout Brook, where Frank kept a cobbler's shop; they had three daughters—Elizabeth, Anna, and Augusta—before Henry's birth.

Kaiser was baptized two years after his birth as Heinrich Kaiser. The middle name "John" does not appear in the baptismal record, and Kaiser himself adopted both it and the anglicized form "Henry" in later years. The family was of modest means, and around 1889, apparently for economic reasons, it moved west to Whitesboro, a town of about 1,600 residents near Utica on the Erie Canal. Kaiser was especially close to his mother and his three older sisters. His mother died in 1899, a loss that some accounts cite as an early influence on his later interest in health care.

Kaiser's first job was as a cash boy in a Utica, New York, department store at the age of 16. He worked as an apprentice photographer early in life, and was running the studio in Lake Placid by the age of 20.

Kaiser relocated to Spokane and became a top salesman at a hardware company. He used his savings and started a construction company in 1906 which fulfilled government contracts.

In 1914 Kaiser founded a paving company, Henry J. Kaiser Co., Ltd., one of the first to use heavy construction machinery. His firm expanded significantly in 1927 when it received an $18-million contract to build roads in Camagüey Province, Cuba. In 1931 his firm was one of the prime contractors in building the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, and subsequently the Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams on the Columbia River.

While doing business among the Six Companies, Inc. and remotely related to his interest in motor boat racing, he set up shipyards in Seattle and Tacoma, where he began using mass-production techniques, such as using welding instead of rivets.

Henry Kaiser was an early advocate of bringing American aid to those suffering from German aggression in Europe. In 1940, a full year before the US had entered World War II, Kaiser served as National Chairman of United Clothing Collection for International War Relief to provide much-needed clothing for the refugees from Hitler's conquests in Europe.

Kaiser fought Hitler far more directly with what he is most famous for: the Kaiser Shipyard in Richmond, California; during World War II adapting production techniques to enable building cargo ships with an average construction time of 45 days. These ships became known as Liberty ships and were later supplemented in the mid-war period by improved, larger and faster Victory ships. He became world-renowned when his teams built a ship in four days. The keel for the 10,500-ton SS Robert E. Peary was laid on Sunday, November 8, 1942, and the ship was launched in California from the Richmond Shipyard#2 on Thursday, November 12, four days and 15+1⁄2 hours later. The previous record had been ten days for the Liberty ship Joseph M. Teal.

A visit to a Ford assembly plant by one of his associates led to a decision to use welding instead of riveting for shipbuilding. Welding was advantageous because it took less strength to do and it was easier to teach to thousands of employees, who were mostly unskilled laborers and many women. Kaiser adopted the use of sub-assemblies in ship construction. Formerly, hundreds of laborers crowded together to complete a ship. Though that practice had been tried on the East Coast and in Britain, Kaiser was able to take full advantage of the process by constructing new shipyards using this concept.

Other Kaiser shipyards were located in Ryan Point (Vancouver) on the Columbia River in Washington state and on Swan Island in Portland, Oregon. A smaller vessel was completed in 71 hours and 40 minutes from the Vancouver yard on November 16, 1942. The Kaiser hulls also became America's smaller, more numerous "escort carriers", over 100 small aircraft carriers employed in both the Pacific and the Atlantic theaters. The concepts that he developed for the mass production of commercial and naval ships are still in use.

One problem with welded hulls that was unknown is the issue of brittle fracture. That caused the loss of some Liberty ships in cold seas as the welds failed and the hulls would crack, sometimes completely into two. Constance Tipper was one of the first people to discover why the Liberty ships were breaking into two. Minor changes in design and more rigid welding control implemented in 1947 eliminated Liberty ship losses until 1955. By his membership in a group called the Six Companies, Kaiser also had a major role in the Joshua Hendy Iron Works of Sunnyvale, California, which built the EC-2 triple expansion steam engines for the Liberty ships. Kaiser and his associates organized the California Shipbuilding Corporation.

In 1945, Kaiser partnered with veteran automobile executive Joseph Frazer to establish a new automobile company from the remnants of Graham-Paige, of which Frazer had been president. Frazer was a respected auto sales executive and was noted for Chrysler's market penetration during the 1930s. The new company was named Kaiser-Frazer. It used a surplus Ford Motor Company defense plant at Willow Run, Michigan originally built for WWII aircraft production by Ford. Kaiser-Frazer (later Kaiser Motors) produced cars under the Kaiser and Frazer names until 1955, when it abandoned the U.S. market and moved production to Argentina. The first K-F models were designed by Howard "Dutch" Darrin and these went from non-existent to number eight in new car sales within two years. Although still producing Jeep vehicles, Kaiser-Willys ceased production of passenger cars in the U.S. after the 1955 model year. They continued producing Kaiser Carabela sedans, identical to the 1955 Kaiser U.S. sedans, in Argentina until 1961.

He built the Kaiser Superbus (1946, scrapped 1951) 60 feet in length with room for 63 seated passengers, and two restrooms, was constructed using magnesium, and aluminum. Only one prototype would be built. A small model used by Kaiser's sales team was reconstructed in 2016. It was a highway bus meant to go from train station to train station within the Santa Fe Railway. It was built for Santa Fe Trailways (later Continental Trailways, part of National Trailways Bus System) to run on longer routes, not entirely inside urban areas. Construction took place at the Kaiser Permanente Metals Corporation plant in Los Altos. The first, and only route, was between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Santa Fe Railway had to petition The California State Railroad Commission to operate the bus on state highways as it used a trailer, which were forbidden to use.

The Henry J was built by the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation and named after its chairman, Henry J. Kaiser. Production of six-cylinder models began in July 1950, and four-cylinder production started shortly after Labor Day, 1950. Official public introduction was September 28, 1950. The car was marketed through 1954.

Kaiser-Frazer held a contest to name their new car, with Henry J being the winning name. A lawsuit by a shareholder in the company alleged that "The name is so ridiculous that it can be justified on no other ground than to satisfy a deep ingrained megalomanic desire for personal publicity". It is unknown the outcome of the suit and in the end, the car was named after Kaiser.

In 1953, Kaiser purchased Willys-Overland, manufacturer of the Jeep line of utility vehicles, changing its name to Willys Motors. In the late 1960s, Kaiser's South American operations were sold to a Ford-Renault combination. In 1963, the name was changed again to Kaiser-Jeep, which was ultimately sold to American Motors Corporation in 1970. As part of the transaction, Kaiser acquired a 22% interest in AMC, which was later divested.

Kaiser met his future wife, Bess Fosburgh, the daughter of a Virginia lumberman, when she came into his photographic shop in Lake Placid, New York, to buy film. Fosburgh's father demanded that Kaiser show that he was financially stable before he would consent to their marriage. Kaiser became a top salesman at a hardware company in Spokane, Washington, returning ten months later with enough money to placate his future father-in-law. They married on April 8, 1907, and had two children, Edgar Kaiser, Sr. and Henry Kaiser, Jr.

Fosburgh died on March 14, 1951. Kaiser married her nurse Alyce Chester (reportedly with his wife's blessing) on April 10, 1951. He adopted her son, who as Michael Kaiser, attended Lafayette Public Vallecito School. Kaiser moved his family to Hawaii in 1955.

Kaiser Industries was dissolved in the late 1970s. Koppers acquired Kaiser Sand & Gravel. Raymond International of Houston acquired Kaiser Engineers, and Kaiser Broadcasting was sold to Field Communications. Kaiser Aerospace & Electronics was sold to its managers. Kaiser Aluminum, Kaiser Cement, and Kaiser Steel remained as independent companies. Hanson Cement acquired Kaiser Cement for $200 million in 1986.

Kaiser was involved in building civic centers, roads, and schools. He was part of the consortium that constructed the Hoover Dam and Grand Coulee Dam. Kaiser is also noted for advancing medicine with the development and construction of hospitals, medical centers and medical schools. The mining town of Eagle Mountain, California, built as part of the West Coast's first integrated mining/processing operation, and linked by rail to his mill in Fontana, California, was an early user of Kaiser Permanente, the first health maintenance organization.

A class of 18 United States Navy fleet replenishment oilers built in the 1980s and 1990s is named the Henry J. Kaiser class. Its lead unit, USNS Henry J. Kaiser, the first U.S. Navy ship named for Kaiser, entered service with the Military Sealift Command on December 19, 1986.

In 1990, Kaiser was made a member of the Labor Hall of Fame of the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., supported by the Friends of the Department of Labor.

On December 1, 2009, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Kaiser posthumously into the California Hall of Fame in the California Museum, Sacramento, California.