 However, a labor force with abilities to accomplish heavy industrial and mechanical work was most needed.To find this labor, recruiting was directed towards areas of the nation's hinterland, which had only a few years before found itself in the depths of the Great Depression in the not mistaken belief that men used to keeping farm machinery operating could built ships, as well.Getting these former farmers to decide to take up shipbuilding was not too difficult an undertaking because the wages offered to these previously poor men were much higher had ever been offered to such working-class Americans before.