Brandywine Valley oral history interviewees' photographs
About this collection
Hagley Museum staff conducted a series oral history interviews between 1954 and 1990, speaking primarily with individuals who had worked at the DuPont Company powder yards on Brandywine Creek during the yards’ final decades of operation or who had lived near the yards as spouses or children of DuPont Co. workers. Some of the individuals who were interviewed donated, lent for copying, or provided information on the photographs in this collection. The images primarily depict the worker communities which surrounded the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company powder yards on Brandywine Creek or the powder yards themselves. For a detailed description of the entire collection, click here to view the finding aid.
- Image: DuPont Co. workers enjoying a drink near the Club House at Thompson's Bridge. Click to view.
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- Wooden keg mill (cooper shop) on Breck's Lane
- Gentieu caption: "Factory where wood kegs are made. Man in center (Gailey Mathewson) has worked here for 50 years and is 77 years old and has only one lung, but seems good for many years yet." The following provided by F.L. Mathewson, grandson of Gilbert Mathewson, in 1966: Main Cooper Shop is building at far right, soaking pits were to right, off picture. Had slate roof and slate shingle siding. Pancake Run is in foreground, flowing under bridge to left. Left to right: Harry Carter (?); Gilbert Mathewson, boss of cooper shop; Frank Applegate; William Roe [Rowe?].
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- Samuel Moore (Mare), cooper, inside Breck's Mill
- Powder keg repairman.
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- Hagley Entrance Gate and New Machine Shop
- Iron and stone lower gate (main entrance). Also called Centennial Gates.
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- Testing area for powder, DuPont Experimental Station
- View through doorway and down hall showing apparatus to test powder.
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- Road bed and stone wall construction before beginning of Peoples Railway on Creek Road (Main Street) in Henry Clay, Delaware
- Buildings left to right: Charles I. du Pont house, Long Row, New Machine Shop in Hagley Yard.
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- Creek Road, road bed and wall under construction in Henry Clay, Delaware
- Charles I. du Pont house at center. Long Row houses at right.
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- Breck's Lane in Henry Clay, Delaware, in snow
- Stable of Lammot du Pont , Jr. visible at right
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- Children sledding on Breck's Lane, Henry Clay Village
- Rokeby Mill, the site of the first DuPont Experimental Station, is visible at foot of Breck's Lane.
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- Swamp Hall, on Breck's Lane
- Written caption: "Irenee du Pont's house, later Alfred I. du Pont's (his son)."
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- Horses of B.G. (Bessie Gardner) du Pont, Swamp Hall
- Rokeby barn visible in background.
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- Employees in New Machine Shop at Hagley Yard
- Identification by Edward L. Bader: Back row left to right: E.M. Taylor (Shop Superintendent), Ed Bader, and Fred Ivins. Front row left to right: William Waterbury, Duncan Thatcher.
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- Hagley workmen in saloon, possibly Robinson's saloon in Wilmington, Delaware
- Left to right: Walker Mathewson, bartender Bill Hearn, Jeff Blakeley, and Les Robinson.
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- Bartender in saloon, possibly Robinson's saloon in Wilmington, Delaware
- Bartender is possibly Ned Robinson.
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- Gasoline traction engine designed by Alfred I. du Pont
- Left to right identified by Bader: "Mike Maloney, Ed Bader at controls, 'Expert' from New York, William Houston (foreman of the machine shop)."