Digital Collections

This collection of stereoviews and lantern slides was assembled by Alexis "Lex" du Pont (1928-2016), the son of Du Pont Motors founder E. Paul du Pont (1887-1950). The founder of New Garden Aviation and New Garden Flying Field in Pennsylvania, Alexis "Lex" du Pont was also a collector and dealer of motorcycles, automobiles, and antique aircraft. This digital collection represents a small part of the full collection, which includes albumen silver prints, cabinet cards, cartes-de-visite, stereoviews, lantern slides, and a lantern slide projector. Many of the items included here are mechanical lantern slides, early forms of animated entertainment. These include glass phenakistiscope discs, a choreutoscope, an astronomical rackwork slide, single and double slip slides, and slip panorama slides. Animated video files accompany these items to demonstrate them in use.

85 items.

The trade journal The American Brewer was founded by Adolph Meckert in New York City in 1867 to serve the nation's growing beer brewing industry. As many of the country's brewers were German immigrants, the journal began publication in German, under the title Der Amerikanische Bierbrauer. Within a year of its founding, it was purchased by its writer and editor, the Bohemian immigrant Anton Schwarz, a trained brewer who would go on to establish the United States Brewers’ Academy in 1882. Schwarz, who died in 1895, passed ownership and editorial responsibilities of the journal to his sons, Robert and Frederick. Each journal issue contains scientific articles, production figures, industry news from around the world, and advertisements from brewery suppliers and manufacturers of brewery equipment.

158 items.

The American Car & Foundry Company purchased the Jackson and Sharp Company of Wilmington, Delaware, in 1901. From the end of World War One to 1938, the plant built small pleasure boats. During World War Two, its production was devoted to building landing barges, LCM tank lighters, aluminum pontoons, plywood smoke barges for the American forces, and YMS minesweepers for the British Navy. The plant was closed around 1945. These photographs document different activities at the American Car & Foundry Company shipyard in Wilmington, Delaware, during World War Two. There are several photos taken on the occasion of the presentation of the Army-Navy "E" award (1942). Images show ship launchings, shipbuilding, BYMS British motor minesweepers, an undated bird's eye view of the A.C.F. plant, and caricatures of A.C.F. draftsman, Robert C. Martin. The collection also includes a small medal with the words, "War Service Ship Building," and the image of a ship.

18 items.

A selection of images from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), a major national trade association of the iron and steel industry. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: Bethlehem Steel Company, Pennsylvania.

1328 items.

This digital collection consists of a journal and letter book of Colonel Anne Louis de Tousard (1749-1817). The journal dates to 1791-1792 and was compiled by Tousard while a prisoner at L'Abbaye accused of counter-​revolutionary activities during the 1791 slave insurrection in Saint Domingue (now Haiti) led by Toussaint L'Ouverture. The letter book, dated 1796-1802, documents Tousard's second career in the United States Army. The materials were digitized from microfilm copies. Image: Anne Louis de Tousard portrait.

2 items.

Founded in 1918 by William H. Stayton, the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment was a leading advocate for prohibition repeal in the United States. This collection comprises postcards and folded cards (stationery) issued by the organization. Each item is headed with the saying "Prohibition-Probes," which is followed by an anti-prohibition slogan or quotation. Image: Jack and Jill stationery

52 items.

Henry Belin du Pont (1898-1970) began Atlantic Aviation in 1927 to provide services for business aviation. In 1948, the company moved from the Du Pont Airport to New Castle County Airport south of Wilmington, Delaware and soon expanded to other airports around the country, continuing today as a major aircraft maintenance and sales provider. The collection includes portraits and views of Atlantic Aviation facilities at various airports. It also includes two photographs of Charles Lindbergh's stop at Du Pont Airport in 1927. Image: Henry Belin du Pont next to his Buhl-Verville CA-3 Airster, circa 1927.

26 items.

Automatic Merchandising Company operated and installed vending machines. A signature product was the Auto-Snak, a set of food vending machines which dispensed soda, coffee, milk, sandwiches, soup, salads, pastries and ice cream. These automat style vending machines emerged in America after the invention of the first coffee vendors in 1946 that allowed for the use of vending machines for coffee breaks, cutting needed catering staffs in large factories. This album is a promotional salesman sample album of automatic food vending machines for factories, universities, and offices. The album promotes the company's Auto-Snak machines which sold milk, fresh salads, sandwiches, hot coffee, pastries, ice cream, hot soup, and soda. The images show close-up views of products such as Pepsi-Cola, Dad's Root Beer, Campbell Soup and others. There is also an article about the Budd plant installing the machines and a report about solving issues related to feeding employees. The promotional album is from the Detroit Branch. The contents have been removed from the album for preservation, but the original order of the album has been maintained.

21 items.

The Avon Collection provides insight into the history of the company, its sales representatives, employees, and consumers. The Avon materials in the Hagley Digital Archives encompasses a range of materials such as advertisements, catalogs, representative's sales tools, and corporate documents. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: Original Avon trademark, 1929.

3174 items.

This collection consists of scenic stereo views from a published series entitled Beauties of the Brandywine, Delaware, produced by the Philadelphia photography studio of Bartlett & French around 1868. The images, many of which were taken on E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company property, feature posed individuals, mill buildings, and the natural landscape along Brandywine Creek. Image: Crushing Mill, Dupont's Powder Works.

33 items.

This collection contains a series of interviews conducted in 2015 and 2016 on the business of craft brewing in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. The collection includes interviews with brewers and brewery owners from Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Additionally, interviews were conducted that cover packaging (canning), distribution, retail sales, and the politics around regulating the alcohol business. The project was developed by Gregory Hargreaves, Hagley's former Oral Historian. Mr Hargreaves also conducted the interviews for the project. Image: A page from a souvenir album for the F.A. Poth Brewing Company in Philadelphia, 1890. Learn more in our digital exhibit Beer & Brewing History at Hagley Museum & Library

22 items.

Incorporated in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1906, Berkshire Knitting Mills began as an experimental hosiery factory and later became the largest full-fashioned knitting mill in the world. This collection comprises captioned photographs dating from 1908 to 1925 of plant buildings and operations. Manufacturing processes depicted include winding, legger, footer, inspection, mending, looping and seaming, examining, topping, thread counting, turning, boarding, pairing, labeling and packing, and shipping. Image: Seaming department.

68 items.

Bethlehem Steel Corporation, along with its Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, was a leading twentieth-century American business as the nation’s second largest steel producer and largest shipbuilder. This digitized collection contains materials from the following two Hagley accessions: <a href="http://h92010.eos-intl.net/H92010/OPAC/Details/Record.aspx?BibCode=MH92010|7057690|1|17731361" target="_blank">Bethlehem Steel Company color transparencies and slides</a> and <a href="https://findingaids.hagley.org/1980_300">Bethlehem Steel Corporation and Bethlehem Ship Corporation photographs</a>.

81 items.

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.

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. Image: DuPont Co. workers enjoying a drink near the Club House at Thompson's Bridge.

182 items.

Buckley Music System, Inc. was a manufacturer and distributor of jukebox music systems for businesses. The company operations were active from 1939 through 1950 (exact incorporation and cessation dates unknown). Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Buckley had several distributors in various regions around the United States. The jukebox stations were tied into a central system, including jukes, a full line of auxiliary wall and or bar boxes, and speakers. This album is a salesman sample catalogue marketing the Buckley jukebox system for restaurants, bars, and clubs. This album opens with three photographs of company employees and an image of a wall-mounted speaker cabinet. A majority of the photographs provide an interior view of empty or near-empty establishments who have implemented the system. These photographs feature architectural and interior design details, as well as advertising and point of sale displays for businesses from all across the United States. The photographs have been kept in their original order.

34 items.

The Budd Company was a manufacturer of steel automobiles, passenger rail cars, and other transportation products. The company began in 1912, in Philadelphia as the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company specializing in the manufacturing of all-steel body automobiles. The company became a major producer of automobile parts as well as a manufacturer of stainless steel passenger railroad cars and other products. This collection’s photographs focuses on the Budd Company rail division with some images of automobiles and wheel products and manufacturing. The bulk of the materials date from the 1940s, 1950s and the 1980s. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

362 items.

In 1901, Congress founded the National Bureau of Standards, known since 1988 as the National Institute of Standards and Technology. It is a non-regulatory agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce created "to establish an authoritative domestic measurement and standards laboratory." In 1926, the Bureau’s Fire Resistance Division burned down two condemned brick buildings in Washington D.C. to study the results. This action was likely the first full-scale fire test ever conducted. The data gathered during these fires was compared against theoretical time-temperature curves that were used at the time, and was eventually used to create uniform fire resistance standards for buildings. This photograph album with explanatory captions documents "a test made with steel office furniture to obtain information on the intensity and duration of fires in buildings." Images show the aftermath of a fire test in an office with furniture supplied by the National Association of Steel Furniture Manufacturers.

33 items.

This digital collection includes issues of Business Screen Magazine, a publication for industrial filmmakers, from 1938 to 1973. Hagley would like to thank Rick Prelinger for his generosity in making this resource available to us. Image: Main studio from the control room at Motorola's Semiconductor Products Division in Phoenix, Arizona, from "The Case for Kines" by Ralph Costlow in the September 1969 issue of Business Screen.

275 items.

Canada Dry is a brand of soft drinks best known for its ginger ale. Canada Dry had its beginning in Toronto, Canada when John McLaughlin (1865-1914) opened a small carbonated water plant in 1890 to manufacture soda water, which he then sold to drugstores as a mixer for fruit juices and flavored extracts. In 1904, he created Canada Dry Pale Dry Ginger Ale. In 1919, McLaughlin began to ship the product to New York City, and two years later opened the first Canada Dry plant in the United States in Manhattan. In 1923, P.D. Saylor and Associates purchased the company from the McLaughlin family and formed Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Inc. Consumer demand grew and this led to national expansion. Much of its popularity was linked to the fact that it was used as a mixer to mask the taste of home brew during Prohibition. The 1930s saw the introduction of other Canada Dry mixers. Canada Dry expanded worldwide during this period. The album was created as salesman's flip chart for Canada Dry distributors to show retailers. There are images of Canada Dry products (ginger ale, club soda, alcohol mixers), views of bottling plants and the manufacturing process which includes photos of ginger being harvested in Jamaica. Advertising campaigns and point of purchase "sales boosters" are illustrated. Lastly, there are merchants' testimonials and statistical marketing information for retailers.

24 items.

Cape Charles was established in 1884 as the southern terminus of the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad. The collection consists of photographs showing the early development of Cape Charles. Views of the wharf and harbor areas and the steamship "Cape Charles" built by Harlin and Hollingsworth of Wilmington, Delaware, comprise nearly half the collection.

40 items.

Carol Litchfield (1936-2012) was a biologist and biochemist specifically interested in halophilic microbiology, that being, microorganisms that live in salt rich environments. Later in her life her interest in halophiles transformed into a fascination with the history of salt. She began collecting everything she could find that related to salt, from images of salt production and advertisements from salt companies, to salt shakers and actual pieces of salt rock. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

16 items.

As an organic chemist, Carter Litchfield (1932-2007) studied and specialized in edible fats. Over the course of his career, Litchfield built an important collection about the history of fats and fatty materials. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety. The online collection is a curated selection of items and primarily includes paper ephemera such as ration stamps, tax stamps, pamphlets, and trade catalogs. There are also items relating to the Prussian chemist, Julius Lewkowitsch (1857-1913), whose collection Litchfield acquired. Image: Fairchild and Shelton's Ozone Soap trade card.

399 items.

The Cavalcade of America was an anthology drama radio program created and sponsored by the DuPont Company as a promotional tool. It aired weekly from 1935 to 1953 and dramatized historical events and occasionally presented a musical performance. The stories were presented as uplifting and emphasized human achievements, progress, and technological innovations. The show had eighteen series producing 781 episodes, many featuring famous guest stars such as Robert Mitchum, Ossie Davis, Ginger Rogers, Ida Lupino, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Ralph Bellamy, Basil Rathbone, and Lucille Ball. In 1952, the program was adapted into a television program; the radio show was discontinued one year later. The collection consists of photographs relating to the radio show. Most are views of rehearsals or live performances, actors and actresses, the DuPont Chorus, and production staff. There are also photographs of program scripts, broadcasting spaces, advertising efforts, and tours of DuPont plants. Representative images from each folder in the collection have been included here, but the physical collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

226 items.

The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876 celebrated the one hundreth anniversary of American Independence. Held in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, it was the first major U.S. world's fair. The Centennial Exhibition opened on May 9, 1876 and closed November 10th. Nearly ten million visitors attended the fair in that time. The fairgrounds were made up of five main buildings, as well as some 250 pavilions and auxiliary structures, including twenty-four state buildings, which were each designed in a regional style. Three large scrapbooks form the most significant and impressive portion of this collection. Also included in the collection are leaflets, pamphlets, trade cards, business cards, correspondence, sheet music, stationary, viewbooks and guidebooks, maps, posters, newspaper clippings, and other ephemera. This collection has not been scanned in its entirety. This digital collection is a work in progress. New scans will be added as they are completed.

567 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 that were taken for the Chamber’s publication, Nation’s Business. Published from 1912 to 1999, the monthly magazine proved invaluable in communicating the Chamber’s messages to business and government, and the magazine featured images by many of the country’s most prominent photographers. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety. To learn more about the photographs from Nation’s Business, visit our online exhibit, 100 Years of Picturing the Nation's Business.

1834 items.

Charles Blasius & Sons began in Philadelphia in 1855. In 1887 they bought the trade name "Albrecht", which was one of the oldest piano makers in the United States. Blasius also made pianos under their own brand name, as well as "Ideal" and "Regent." Sometime between 1913 and 1918 they were bought by the Rice-Wuest Company, which continued making pianos until they went out of business at some unknown time. This collection shows interiors and exterior views of the company's factory in Woodbury, New Jersey.

14 items.

An aerial photographer hobbyist turned professional, Charles Findeisen (1919-2007) spent most of his life flying airplanes. He consulted for real estate development firms, engineering firms, and construction companies, and virtually all of his work was in the tri-state region of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Many of the images in this collection have associated coordinates identifying the precise location where the photograph was taken. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety and many of the photographs here depict local airports. Image: Millville Municipal Airport in New Jersey.

105 items.

Charles H. DeMirjian worked for the DuPont Company's Advertising and Marketing Communications Department from 1954 until 1991. He was primarily a manager of designers, helping to establish design parameters and making the final selections from work submitted by subordinates and subcontractors. This collection consists of brochures, advertisements, photographs, and ephemera showing DuPont Company consumer products collected by DeMirjian related to his career. Image: Advertisement for DuPont Lucite wall paint labels.

338 items.

This digital collection includes a small but significant selection of letters, photographs, pictorial envelopes, and other primary sources from the Hagley Library connected to the Civil War. Many of the items relate to du Pont family members, soldiers who served with them, or powdermen who worked in the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company powder yards during the war. Of particular interest is the correspondence of Rear Admiral Samuel Francis du Pont with one of his naval officers, Percival Drayton. The items were digitized in conjunction with Hagley's exhibit, An Oath of Allegiance to the Republic: the du Ponts and the Civil War. Image: Crew of the USS Wabash, detail.

665 items.

Incorporated in October 1974, the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) was formed under the auspices of the United States Railway Association, a quasi-public agency established for the purpose of solving the problems of bankrupt railroads in the Northeast and Midwest. The Conrail photograph collection consists of a large number of images from its company files, but the majority of the material comes from its predecessor companies, Pennsylvania Railroad and Penn Central Transportation Company. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: Employee cleaning circuit boards.

150 items.

Incorporated in Delaware in 1935, the Consolidation Coal Company formed in Maryland in 1860. In 1945, the company merged with Pittsburgh Coal Company to form Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Company. The name returned to Consolidation Coal Company (Consol) in 1958. This digital collection comprises the annual reports of the company from 1940 to 1965 as well as a corporate history published in 1934. Image: Detail from back cover of 1953 annual report.

27 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.

99 items.

This digital collection includes more than 7,800 images from the Dallin Aerial Survey Company collection. The company specialized in aerial images of factories, private estates, schools, country clubs, towns, airports, rivers, and many other sites and some news events of the day. The majority of the photographs concentrate on the Mid-Atlantic region covering a period from 1924 to 1939 although Dallin did make trips to other locales within the United States. To learn more about the Dallin Company and the collection, visit our online exhibit A Bird's Eye View of the Delaware Valley: The Photography of the Dallin Aerial Survey Company. Image: 1930 World Series Opening Game at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

8089 items.

David Harrison Cope (1913-2001) held a lifelong interest in railroads. From an early age, he began a collection consisting of photographs, negatives, and eventually 35 mm slides of mostly locomotives and trains from southeastern Pennsylvania. His own photography began in the 1930s. His collection also includes images from other railfans from about 1890 to the 1960s. The collection primarily consists of black and white photographs and negatives of steam locomotives from a variety of railroads, but it includes some other images as well; mostly rolling stock, station photos, street railroads, and other related railroad items. Cope also photographed and collected 35 mm color slides of his subjects, dating predominantly from the 1970s. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety, and more items may be added to this digital collection at later dates.

141 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.

897 items.

Pierre S. du Pont incorporated the Delaware School Auxiliary Association in 1919 to finance the construction of new school buildings throughout the state. Between 1918 and 1940 du Pont donated $5,000,000 to build some 120 schools. This collection contains photographs, almost all exterior, of 114 public elementary and secondary schools in Delaware. These include old school buildings and the new ones that replaced them in the building program instituted by Pierre S. du Pont. To learn more about the legacy of segregation in Delaware education, see A Separate Place: The Schools that P.S. du Pont Built. Image: Christiana Colored School as constructed in 1920.

434 items.

A selection of photographs from albums of the Delaware State Fair from 1919, 1920, and 1921. The albums have not been digitized in their entirety. Image: Crowds at the 1919 Delaware State Fair.

51 items.

When the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western (DL&W) Railroad added direct ownership of coal mining facilities to its operation in 1851, its combination of mining and transportation industries under one corporate entity gave it a market advantage. The DL&W became one of the largest and most prosperous anthracite transporting and mining companies in Pennsylvania. However, following the successfully prosecuted antitrust suit of United States v. Delaware, Lackawanna & W. R. Co. in 1915, as well as a series of antitrust actions against competitors, the DL&W voluntarily divested itself of its mining operations, which were reorganized under the Glen Alden Coal Company in 1921. This collection consists of dated and undated views of mining equipment, mine tunnels, and mine building exteriors and interiors in the eastern Pennsylvania counties of Lackawanna and Luzerne. Most of the views are exteriors devoid of workers. Many of the photographs include a photo credit for W. B. Bunnell, the official photographer of the DL&W.

32 items.

The Disposor Corporation was incorporated on July 17, 1933. It is a foreign business corporation with headquarters in New York, New York. The Disposor Corporation was the sales agent for the General Fan Corporation of New York City in the 1930s. Ernst Glantzberg (?-1936) was the President of General Fan Corporation which manufactured the Typhoon fan and other significant heating, ventilating and cooling units. This collection consists of fourteen photographs of various mechanical units (ventilating and cooling) on display at exhibits or installed in businesses, including a ship and restaurants. These images were put together by Disposor Corporation into a sales album. The album also includes images of various styles of grilles that the General Fan Corporation offered and three charts of various product specifications and prices. The photographs have been unbound for preservation. Six photographs are missing from the album.

11 items.

Founded by E. Paul du Pont (1887-1950) in 1919, Du Pont Motors, Inc. manufactured luxury automobiles in Wilmington, Delaware. The company produced eight models, each with several body styles, as well as a few special models. Each of the vehicles was made in limited production, resulting in only 537 vehicles manufactured in the twelve years of the company’s operation. The company suspended production in 1931 due to effects of the Great Depression and went out of business in 1932. The images in this digital collection primarily depict exteriors of Du Pont Motor’s Models A, B, D, and G. Image: Mrs. E. Paul du Pont driving 1919 Du Pont Model A.

33 items.

This collection of more than 1200 photographs depicts the landscape and buildings at or near the DuPont explosives manufacturing plants along Brandywine Creek near Wilmington, Delaware. Approximately 900 images depict powder yard sites, including the DuPont Experimental Station, either during the mills' final decades of operation or prior to, during, and after excavation and restoration work on the site in the 1950s and 1960s. Most of the remaining images depict the worker communities which surrounded the powder yards. Image: DuPont Company metal keg mill workers.

1285 items.

The DuPont Company External Affairs Department photograph file contains images from all aspects of the company's activities and history, which the department compiled for use in advertising and publicity. Only a small portion of the collection has been digitized.

85 items.

The DuPont Company Museum collection consists of photographs and prints that document the history of the DuPont Company. The materials in this collection were originally compiled by the DuPont Company Museum, transferred to the Hagley Museum in 1954 and subsequently to the Hagley Library in 1968. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety, and the online collection is a curated selection of items. Among other subjects, the image depict the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York; the construction of Coleman du Pont Road; production of Phenolin; game birds advertising series; Haskwell Works explosion aftermath, cartoons of employees; a female employee baseball league; and company plants at Old Hickory, Tennessee and Farmingdale, New Jersey. Image: Mexican employees at Old Hickory, Tennessee plant.

368 items.

The DuPont Company South San Francisco Plant began operation in 1935. The plant manufactured and packaged finishes such as Lucite paint, Duco laquers and Dulux enamels. Images in the collection depict the plant's construction in the mid-1930s and exteriors of the office, change house, tank farm and other buildings in 1945. The digital collection comprises most of the photographic material and a portion of the ephemera from the collection, although the collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: Building 21.

38 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.

278 items.