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SS William J. Bryan

liberty ship of WWII

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ43445660 ↗
Source-derived summary

SS William J. Bryan was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after William J. Bryan, a member of the US House of Representatives from Nebraska, a three time Democratic Party presidential nominee, and United States Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson.

Construction

William J. Bryan was laid down on 21 September 1942, under a United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) contract, MC hull 1522, by J.A. Jones Construction, Panama City, Florida; she was launched on 22 April 1943.

History

She was allocated to the Standard Fruit & Steamship Company, on 20 May 1943. On 10 June 1946, she was laid up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet, in the Hudson River Group. On 26 March 1948, she was laid up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet, in Wilmington, North Carolina. On 20 July 1965, she was sold for $45,278.78, to Union Minerals and Alloys Corporation, for scrapping. She was removed from the fleet on 20 August 1965.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “SS William J. Bryan” is liberty ship of WWII. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, Bryan and liberty, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1942, 1522, 1943, 1946—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, William, Bryan and liberty is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “liberty ship of WWII” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q43445660. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1522, 1943 and 1946.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “SS William J. Bryan”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow SS William J. Bryan primary sources, SS William J. Bryan archive and William 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 “SS William J. Bryan”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “SS William J. Bryan” 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.