The American Ship Building Company was the dominant shipbuilder on the Great Lakes before the Second World War. It started as Cleveland Shipbuilding in Cleveland, Ohio in 1888 and opened the yard in Lorain, Ohio in 1898. It changed its name to the American Ship Building Company in 1900, when it acquired Superior Shipbuilding, in Superior, Wisconsin; Toledo Shipbuilding, in Toledo, Ohio; and West Bay Shipbuilding, in West Bay City, Michigan. With the coming of World War I, the company also acquired Buffalo Dry Dock, in Buffalo, New York; Chicago Shipbuilding, in Chicago, Illinois; and Detroit Shipbuilding, in Wyandotte, Michigan. American Shipbuilding ranked 81st among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.

Lorain is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States. It is located in Northeast Ohio on Lake Erie at the mouth of the Black River, about 25 miles (40 km) west of Cleveland. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 65,211, making it Ohio's ninth-largest city, the third-largest in Greater Cleveland, and the largest in Lorain County by population.