taking the astonishingly brief time of a little over two weeks to assemble a Liberty ship by standard methods. SS Red Oak Victory The SS Red Oak Victory is a Victory ship preserved as a museum ship. It was one of 414 Victories built during World War II (constructed at the Richmond Shipyards), but one of only a few of these ships to be transferred from the Merchant Marine to the U.S. Navy. The vessel issued cargo and munitions to various ships in the fleet throughout 1945. During a hazardous tour of duty in the Pacific, SS Red Oak Victory handled many tons of ammunition, supplying the fleet without a single casualty. Atchison Village Housing Project The huge influx of workers coming to live in cities like Richmond, caused intense strain on city infrastructure. One of these strains was the severe lack of housing. Workers arriving in these rapidly expanding urban centers were forced to find what they could. They slept in all night movie houses, shared "hot beds" (i.e. when one person got in bed, it was still hot from the last person getting out), or just camped out. Atchison Village Housing Project is an example of the local-Federal collaboration that provided much needed housing and domestic support for defense workers and their families. The modest, wood-frame buildings clearly reflect the constraints (time, money and materials) placed on publicly funded housing construction during the period. Just prior to and during the war, the Lanham Act of 1940 provided $150 million to the Works Progress Administration, which built approximately 625,000 units of housing in conjunction with local authorities nationwide. These were highly sought after and company managers were the most likely to be able to procure housing in Atchison Village. Due to racial discrimination, minorities fared very poorly in gaining housing. They often lived in shacks, in the crates that brought the raw materials to the city, in trailers, or in automobiles. They and other lower income earning workers were lucky when they were able to move to barrack-like dormitories constructed for the mass of World War II workers. The Richmond Housing Authority was selected to be the first authority in the country to manage a defense project. Atchison Village represents one of 20 public housing projects built in Richmond before and during World War II. Constructed in 1941 as Richmond's first public defense housing project, it is the only