[3] The neighborhood was a federally funded World War I planned community of approximately 1000 homes located near New York Shipbuilding of Camden, New Jersey, and was intended to provide housing for the shipyard's workers and their families.

[5] New York Shipbuilding had more than tripled in size due to war contracts, and the influx of shipyard workers was overwhelming the Camden housing market.

[6] Actual construction was managed by the Department of Housing and Transit, United States Shipping Board, Emergency Fleet Corporation which selected Electus Darwin Litchfield as architect.

The cost of those services was beyond the means of Haddon Township, which ceded Yorkship Village to the City of Camden on July 8, 1918.

At the end of the war the Emergency Fleet Corporation began selling properties with 1,579 houses, 59 apartments, 13 stores, a hotel, a gymnasium and miscellaneous buildings unsold at the start of 1921.