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McDermott International

American engineering company

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History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ1915079 ↗
Source-derived summary

McDermott International, Ltd provides engineering and construction services to the energy industry. Operating in over 54 countries, McDermott has more than 30,000 employees, as well as a fleet of specialty marine construction vessels and fabrication facilities around the world. Incorporated in Bermuda, It is headquartered in the Energy Corridor area of Houston, Texas.

History

In 1923, Ralph Thomas McDermott established J. Ray McDermott & Company Incorporated at the age of 24 upon receipt of a contract to build 50 wooden drilling rigs for a wildcatter in Luling, Texas. Knowing he could benefit from his father's long-time experience in the lumber and oilfield construction businesses, Ralph made John Raymond McDermott a partner and the company's namesake.

In 1930, it expanded the business from its original headquarters in Eastland, Texas, to Luling after a boom in oil exploration in the area. In 1932, the company moved to Houston, Texas with the continuing oil boom. It provided different services to the oil industry through three McDermott family-owned businesses: J. Ray McDermott & Co., Elmax Construction, and Stall & McDermott.

1937 saw the hiring of the company's first construction crew, a team of six. The company opened a New Orleans, Louisiana office.

Editorial summary

“McDermott International” enters the record as american engineering company. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what McDermott, International and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1923, 1930, 1932, 1937—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1923-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around McDermott, International and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“McDermott International” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, McDermott, International and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1915079. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1923, 1930, 1932 and 1937.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “McDermott International”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow McDermott International primary sources, McDermott International archive and McDermott research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “McDermott International”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “McDermott International” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.