Featured Collections

Better Living was a Du Pont employee magazine created and published by the company's public relations department. The magazine, which began publication in 1946, featured the company's popular advertising slogan "Better Things for Better Living...Through Chemistry." In keeping with this branding, its issues featured photojournalistic essays celebrating Du Pont products' contribution to improving American standards of living, features depicting Du Pont employees at work and at leisure, updates on Du Pont activities at home and abroad, and articles extolling free market values and the role of citizen consumers in postwar America.

148 items.

This digital collection includes consists of issues of Business Screen magazine, a trade publication for the industrial film industry, that were published between 1938 and 1973. We would like to thank Rick Prelinger for his generosity in making this resource available. Hagley Library's Business Screen magazine (Accession 2017.227) collection is entirely digital. Original materials are housed with the Prelinger Archives, which also provided the digital copy.

275 items.

The Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America formed in 1912 with the purpose of advising the government on issues facing industry and business throughout the country. The majority of images in this digital collection are photographs taken for the Chamber’s publication, Nation’s Business.. Published from 1912 to 1999, the monthly magazine featured images by many of the country’s most prominent photographers, and proved invaluable as a public relations tool and a means of communicating the Chamber's agenda to members of the business and legislative communities. This digital collections features selected materials from the Chamber of Commerce of the United States photographs and audiovisual material (Accession 1993.230) collection and from additional publications that may be found by searching Hagley Library's catalog. To learn more about the photographs from Nation’s Business, visit our online exhibit, "100 Years of Picturing the Nation's Business".

1926 items.

Cinecraft Productions was founded in 1939 by Ray Culley (1904-1983) and Betty (Buehner) Culley (1914-2016) in Cleveland, Ohio. Cinecraft specializes in commercial productions for business, industry, trade organizations, and, in some cases, government agencies and social service organizations. Cinecraft is still in business and rightfully claims itself the “country's longest-standing corporate film & video production house.”

849 items.

Cinecraft Productions was founded in 1939 by Ray Cully (1904-1983) and Betty Culley (1914-2016) in Cleveland, Ohio. Ray Culley served as president of the company and producer on many Cinecraft films until his retirement in 1970. During his tenure, Cinecraft specialized in commercial productions for business, industry, trade organizations, and, in some cases, government agencies and social service organizations.

104 items.

Selection of materials from the David Sarnoff Library including photographs, RCA Annual Reports, Broadcast News, and technical journals and newsletters produced by RCA. Additionally, the collection includes advertisements from RCA and the Victor Talking Machine Company. This digital collection is a very small sample of the entire David Sarnoff Library at Hagley. For more information visit the David Sarnoff Library Project site.

907 items.

This collection of films and commercials documents the research, development, training, safety measures, products, and promotional aspects of DuPont Company history. The moving images include commercials, short films, feature films, and television programs. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

297 items.

Herbert Harwood Jr. Railroad and Transportation Collection of photographic negatives comprises nearly 150,000 images covering all of the twentieth century. The collection includes Harwood’s own work as a railroad photographer as well as the work of others. Among the collection are photographs from many notable photographers active in the 1930s and ‘40s and well as the work of his father-in-law, George M. Beischer, who served as the chief mechanical officer for several railroads, including the fledgling Amtrak in the 1970s. The collection is currently being processed. Image: Aerotrain in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1956(Herbert H. Harwood, Jr.).

91 items.

Hologic, Inc. is a developer and manufacturer of medical digital imaging instruments with a primary focus on women's health. This oral history collection brings together interviews with the individuals involved in inventing, researching, and commercializing digital mammography and breast tomosynthesis at DuPont, Sterling, and Hologic.

30 items.

The online collection includes the employee newsletter of the Lukens Steel Company produced between 1935 and 1989. The newsletter was called Lukens Plate through 1949, then was renamed Lukens Life after 1950. The issues include information about the Lukens community; retirement, engagement, and wedding announcements of Lukens employees; and other relevant industry news. The collection also includes seven volumes of a separate publication called The Specialist which contained specialized industry information and was produced between 1969 and 1975.

781 items.

This collection of moving images documents operations at the Midvale Steel Plant in the Nicetown section of Philadelphia circa 1919.

5 items.

The publication of the United States Chamber of Commerce. All issues from 1914 to 1999 have been digitized.

1114 items.

Organized in Ohio in 1895 with the goal to protect American goods from foreign competition and to promote trade expansion, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) continues today as the largest manufacturing association in the United States. This digital collection contains a selection of items primarily dating to the 1960s and 1970s. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Read more about the collection on the NAM Project News site.

2043 items.

Incorporated in 1846, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company became the largest railroad in the United States in terms of corporate assets and traffic from the last quarter of the nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. This collection of more than 5200 negatives from the official Pennsylvania Railroad files largely depict PRR trains, tracks, equipment, and facilities. The collection also contains numerous views of similar facilities and equipment on other railroads, of nearby buildings and properties, or of standardized equipment and accessories that were collected by the PRR for reference. The negatives were digitized to positives for online access. Most of the digital images seen here are black-and-white, low resolution copies produced from the original negatives.

5404 items.

A selection of items from a collection that documents Sperry's UNIVAC Division and predecessor organizations including the Remington Typewriter Company, the Rand Kardex Company, and the Sperry Gyroscope Company. The content of the digital collection primarily includes product images of computers from the 1950s to 1970s. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: UNIVAC 9300 system.

386 items.

‘Sponsored film’ defines a variety of motion picture productions funded by businesses, organizations, or governments that dictated the point of view, audience, and intent of the film. Industrial or business films are a sub-genre of sponsored films with content that marketed products and ideas, touted a particular company or industry, trained employees, and explained manufacturing or transactional processes around the creation and sales of products and ideas. The Sponsored and industrial motion picture film collection at Hagley is an artificial collection compiled by curators that includes single motion picture films or small sets of films acquired via purchase or donation. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: Still from "Fountain of Happiness" sponsored by the Weber Dental Manufacturing Company, circa 1950.

100 items.