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Their wooden construction, however, did not measure up to the stresses and strains of ocean-going steam propulsion. The entry of British iron steamers into the transatlantic trade in the 1850's made these craft obsolete and, with the abandonment of the mail subsidies in 1858, construction of such oceangoing wooden steamships in the United States came to a halt. While American wooden construction v joying its heyday, iron shipbuilding in the States was going through its birth panj 1844, some 22 years after the first iron s had been built in Britain, the firm of Belts lan, and Hollingsworth of Wilmington, Del delivered the coastwise steamer, Bangor, tl significant iron ship built in America.

Hence, in the latter part of the 19th century American shipbuilding was divided into two distinct branches, namely: that of building wooden sailers and that of building metal steamers. So different were the requirements of capital investment, managerial ability and skill that very few of the wood yards bridged the gap to metal construction. The remainder went under after the last boom in wooden building, that involving the construction of wooden schooners for the protected coastwise trades.

Wooden construction continued to dom the American scene until the late 1890's, whe in Britain, the annual output of iron and tonnage outdistanced wood in the mid-1860' Although the markets for high-class wo hulls—clippers and packets—and for freigi for the cotton trade failed to revive after Civil War, a new trade, that of shipping j from the west coast to Europe, caused the struction of wooden sailing vessels to remai active industry. But it was a specialized ir, try which found itself concentrated on the M coast, close to the best remaining suppl; lumber and favored by low wage rates dawn-to-dusk working hours. Elsewhere woi shipbuilding declined rapidly. In 1875, M launched 80 per cent of the wooden square gers built in the United States.