W.C. Spruance lantern slides

About this collection

    William C. Spruance, Jr., was an electrical engineer, a company executive on the board of directors of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, and a civic leader in Wilmington, Delaware. Spruance was also an amateur photographer and used these skills to photograph the gardens of his wife, Alice Moore Lea Spruance, as well as gardens of other wealthy residents of New Castle County between 1920 and 1925.
    The W.C. Spruance lantern slides (Accession 1984.217) collection contains estate or private gardens in New Castle County; slides with images from trips to Puerto Rico, Florida, and New Brunswick, Canada; and a small group of images relating to nitroglycerine and dynamite manufacture. Many of the images are either hand colored lantern slides or color Lumiere Autochrome lantern slides.
    The collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Most of the images selected for digitization and presented here were created between 1920 and 1925 and show estate and private gardens in and around Wilmington, Delaware.
    Image: Alice Lea Spruance's town garden. Click here to view in the collection.

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Garden of Charles M. Barton
Violas, phlox divaricata, retroflexa tulips alongside stone building; garden swing in background