Digital Collections

In 1910, the chemical company E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company purchased the Fabrikoid Company of Newburgh, New York, which had developed a textile coating process. The process was used in upholstery, luggage, automobile fabrics, and bookbinding. This is a portfolio of separate pages with two photographs per page placed in a folder made of blue Fabrikoid. The photos illustrate the use of Fabrikoid upholstery in a variety of commercial and residential interior applications, including wall coverings in store window displays, seating and side walls in aircraft, draperies, screens, table tops, as well as furniture. The interior decorating work illustrated in this portfolio is credited to some well-known modernist designers and architects: Raymond M. Hood, John Mead Howells, Winold Reiss, Eugene Schoen, Joseph Urban, and O.W. Wentz. Public buildings shown include the Palm Beach, Florida Hotel, the Tavern Club, Hotel Bossert, Panhellenic Club, and Little Carnegie Theatre.

14 items.

Established in 1913, DuPont Magazine publicized the products and progress of the company during the twentieth century. The issues include articles, product information, and advertisements on topics such as dynamite, quarrying, ammunition, popular plastic products, automobile accessories, and other useful items for the home. This digital collection includes all issues published between 1913 and 2003. Image: Cover detail of DuPont Magazine, v. 14, no. 4.

639 items.

A selection of images related to the DuPont Company powder yards during World War I from the Hagley Digital Archives chosen by our staff. This does not include all material we have on this topic. For a more thorough search, start on our Search Hagley Collections page. If you have additional questions please contact us at AskHagley@hagley.org. Image: Female worker filling powder into silk bags at DuPont Co. Brandywine Mills, circa 1918.

14 items.

In 1952, the DuPont Company created the Product Information section within the Public Relations department. Its function was to produce new releases with photographs about DuPont and its products for indirect publicity and advertising purposes. Most of the photographs were taken from the 1930s through the 1950s. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: Comparison of Teflon and plastic.

2457 items.

The Textile Fibers Department of the DuPont Company, established in 1936 as the Rayon Department, specialized in researching and developing synthetic fibers for fabrics such as Rayon, Nylon, Teflon, Corian, and Kevlar. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: Chester Weinberg evening gown in Qiana nylon.

304 items.

As DuPont began to diversify its product line beyond gunpowder and explosives in the early twentieth century, the company had a need for more advertising. DuPont established an Advertising Division within the Sales Department between 1907 and 1909, which was reorganized into a separate Advertising Department in 1921. The collection of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company Advertising Department records has not been digitized in its entirety. The online collection comprises magazine tearsheets featuring DuPont advertisements dating from 1901 to 1971. A variety of brands and products are represented, including gunpowder, automobile supplies, Cellophane, paints, cleaning supplies, Rayon, Nylon, Dacron, and Fabrikoid. Image: 1956 advertisement for DuPont Cellophane.

677 items.

This collection comprises three albums relating to E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company’s participation in World’s Fairs. One album focuses on the company’s efforts to promote its exhibits in the New York World's Fair and the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco, both held in 1939. Another gives a photographic preview of the company’s exhibit at the San Francisco exposition. The final album is a proposal portfolio from industrial designer, Walter Dorwin Teague, and highlights other projects Teague had recently completed. Image: Cellophane demonstration at 1939 San Francisco exhibit.

3 items.

A view of all collections in the Hagley Digital Archives that include material related to the DuPont Company and du Pont family. For a more comprehensive search of all du Pont and DuPont related content at the Hagley Library see our Search Collections page.

18 items.

A selection of images and documents related to employees of the DuPont Company during the 19th century from the Hagley Digital Archives chosen by our staff. This does not include all material we have on this topic. For a more thorough search, start on our Search Hagley Collections page. If you have additional questions please contact us at AskHagley@hagley.org.

33 items.

This collection, were originally included in the Pictorial Collections Hagley File reference prints as N60 (Nyalite) and P80 (Pulp Keg Mill), consists of photographs that document two separate activities. The first grouping shows an outdoor safety demonstration of Nyalite, a new explosive developed at the DuPont Experimental Station. This demonstration was probably conducted in the Hagley powder yards. Nyalite, an nitrostarch explosive compound developed in 1905, was designed for use in coal mines, and was marketed as a safer alternative to other mining explosives. The second group documents the pulp keg mill near Squirrel Run which, after the powder yards closed, was used for record storage by the DuPont Company. Currently, it is a Hagley Museum and Library property, the Hall of Records. Photographs show exterior and interior views.

46 items.

This digital collection includes more than 3300 items from the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company records collection. The items digitized to date primarily consist of correspondence received by the company between 1802 and 1886 from customers, sales agents, and other business associates. Correspondence with sales agents describe the marketing of black powder to the Army, Navy, coal mine operators, and railroad entrepreneurs. Also included in the digital collection are ledgers which document wages of individual workers and describe living standards. Image: Receipt for the purchase of two passages from Liverpool to Philadelphia, 1852.

3348 items.

The images in this collection primarily depict the buildings, machinery, and workers at the DuPont Co. powder yards on Brandywine Creek and at Carney's Point, New Jersey. Some of the photographs, in particular those of Carney's Point, may have been photographed by Francis G. du Pont, who was the superintendent of the plant. There are also images of du Pont family members and du Pont family homes, slides of an engine used in a study, commercially produced travel views, and a few hand-drawn lantern slides of birds. The bulk of the collection dates from circa 1880 to 1920. Image: Soda House at Carney's Point Works.

214 items.

Collection features over 300 photographs taken by the Seal family of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania during the first half of the twentieth century. Many of these images offer a glimpse into family and town life in Chadds Ford and Wilmington, Delaware during the 1920s and 1930s, featuring Seal family members, friends, neighbors, and employees. Other subjects include the 1939 World's Fair in New York, the artists N.C. and Andrew Wyeth, and local bridges and roads. Image: Howard Ellsworth Seal, Sr. planting corn with granddaughter.

323 items.

This digital collection is a small selection of items from the Eleuthera Bradford du Pont Collection, which dates from the lifetime of E.I. du Pont (1771-1834) and documents important aspects of the early history of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. The materials digitized to date include three company account books dating from 1802 to 1809 as well as corporate correspondence with a Philadelphia businessman, dating to 1805, and with an agent in Cuba, dating from 1821 to 1825. There is also an 1806 letter of introduction for the company written by Aaron Burr. Image: Page from E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company account ledger, 1802-1809, detail.

13 items.

Series of photographs taken at the dedication of the Eleutherian Mills Library on October 7th 1961. In 1984, the name of the library was changed to Hagley Library. Image: Mrs. James Q. du Pont, Mrs. K. Mark, and Mrs. David Craven on library building terrace.

57 items.

Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation research reports were produced beginning in 1953 for the purpose of developing Hagley Museum’s exhibits and interpretations. They were prepared by research staff and by participants in the Hagley Fellowship Program, administered jointly with the University of Delaware. Many of the reports focus on the industrial development of the Brandywine River Valley and surrounding area. The research reports also include scholarly articles which utilize Hagley’s collections as source material or address subjects pertaining to Hagley's mission. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

65 items.

Elizabeth Webb (1663-1726) was a minister of the Society of Friends. Her journal, dating from 1697 to 1699, is a record of Webb's first visit to America with her companion, Mary Rogers, to visit several important Quaker meetings.

2 items.

Ernest Dichter (1907-1991) was a major pioneer in consumer motivational research. This online collection is a small sample of items from Dichter's collection at Hagley comprising various research proposals and studies, a magazine interview, and several issues of the motivational newsletter The Human Factor. Substantial material from the Ernest Dichter papers can be found in the subscription database, American Consumer Culture. The database is available to Hagley's on-site researchers and database subscribers. Image: Detail from cover of The Human Factor, no. 366.

19 items.

This collection was purchased in 1971 as part of a lot that included a number of other small collections. The photographer is unknown. The collection consists of thirty-five glass negatives and one original box. The negatives themselves include no identifying information, but a sticker on the box indicates that the images are of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Many of the images include identifiable landmarks. Most of the photographs appear to have been taken in Wissahickon Valley Park, historically part of the Fairmount Park system, prior to a 2010 merger of the city’s Fairmount Park Commission and the Department of Recreation. This park is located in Northwest Philadelphia, and includes Wissahickon Creek from its confluence with the Schuylkill River, and extends to the northwestern boundary of the city with eastern Montgomery County. While the photographs are undated, it is estimated that they were taken no earlier than 1908, based on the presence of what appears to be Walnut Lane Bridge, completed in October of that year, in one of the images.

36 items.

Beginning the the 1950's, the New York Federal Reserve began publishing educational comic books intended to teach young adult readers about topics such as banking, monetary policy, inflation, and the Federal Reserve system in the United States. The comics, largely aimed at high-school age readers, were distributed free of charge to to teachers and educational institutions, along with lesson plans that could be used to incorporate the comics into classroom activities. This digital collection includes examples of these publications from the Hagley Library's collection. While the majority of these examples were published after the year 2000, they include publications from the the 1970s through the 1980s.

10 items.

The Ferracute Machine Company of Bridgeton, New Jersey was a press and die business founded by Oberlin Smith (1840-1926) in 1863. This digital collection contains images of Oberlin Smith and Ferracute employees, the company's shops, as well as images of a trip made by an employee, Henry A. Janvier, who was sent to China as a consultant to the American Trading Company to supervise the installation of Ferracute coining machines in the Imperial Chinese mints in Hubei and Sichuan provinces in 1898. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: Henry Janvier with dog, Snooks, and Ferracute Co. equipment at the mint in Chengdu, China, 1898.

55 items.

A curated selection of moving picture content from Hagley's Audiovisual Collections. Image: Cans of movie film ready for shipment. DuPont Company.

125 items.

Assembled by collectors Arlene and Gerald Fingerman, the collection consists of mixed-format ephemera from various endeavors within American culture, primarily the manufacturing and selling of products or services. Advertising cards and labels compose a large portion of the collection, but it also includes billheads, blotters, bookmarks, business cards, catalogs, checks, envelopes, flyers, letterheads, newsletters, packaging, postcards, and stamps. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: Advertising card for J. & P. Coats six cord thread.

142 items.

The Fitz Water Wheel Company specialized in the manufacture of water wheels and small power plants. John Fitz (1847-1914), who succeeded his father as head of the firm, developed the modern steel overshot water wheel. Fitz aimed its product at farmers, small millers, and small town hydroelectric and pumping stations in the United States and abroad. The spread of rural electrification cut into Fitz's market, but John Samuel Fitz, who had succeeded his father in 1914, kept the firm in business by shifting to production for "show" rather than productive use. The firm made many model wheels and turbines for engineering schools and historic restorations of working mills. This collection has been digitized in its entirety, though duplicative items have been omitted from scanning.

40 items.

Floyd Hollenbeck (1920-2002) worked for Trimfit Hosiery, a distribution company for Hanes Hosiery Mills Company. The Hanes Co. was an early adopter of nylon hosiery manufacture, a process first created in 1938. This collection contains twenty-four stereoviews of the Hanes Winston-Salem manufacturing plant and offices from the mid-1960s, by which time Hanes had developed seamless pantyhose.

24 items.

Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation Archives

Based in Wilmington, Delaware, Frank Earle Schoonover (1877-1972) was a prolific commercial illustrator, artist, and avid photographer. Over the course of a six-decade career, he completed more than twenty-five hundred works, primarily illustrations for magazines and books but also landscapes, portraits, murals, book plates, sculpture, and stained-glass windows. This collection consists of negatives taken by Schoonover, largely for use as source material for his artwork. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

3792 items.

The Frank R. Zebley photograph albums includes nearly 1500 historical photographs from the city of Wilmington, locations around the state of Delaware, southeastern Pennsylvania, and other places of interest in the mid-Atlantic region. A special thanks to Hagley volunteer Jean Abplanalp for her photograph research on this collection. Image: Surf fishing on Sunset Beach at Cape May Point.

1449 items.

In 1929, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and the Victor Talking Machine Company merged, resulting in the formation of the RCA Victor Company in 1930. This merger allowed RCA to consolidate the research, engineering, manufacturing and sales of RCA products and further establish itself as one of the country's leading manufacturers and vendors of radios, phonographs, televisions, and a wide array of consumer and military electronics products. This collection consists of negatives, a majority of which feature sound and television equipment manufactured by RCA. These images include phonographs, radios, radio-phonograph combinations, records, speakers, amplifiers, microphones, facsimile machines, televisions, equipment involved in the transmission and reception of television and radio waves, radio equipment created for use by government agencies and motion picture equipment. Company historian Frederick O. Barnum III salvaged this collection from the abandoned photo lab on the 4th floor of Building 10 of the RCA Camden Plant after the plant had been vacated and abandoned by successor company Martin Marietta Corporation in April 1993.

80 items.

G.C. Murphy Co. was a chain of discount variety stores founded by George Clinton Murphy in 1906 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. Murphy had been an executive with McCrory stores before opening up his own store. After Murphy's death, two former McCrory executives purchased the small chain in 1911. They quickly made it a profitable business as 5c-10c-25c stores, and expanded to new areas. Despite the Depression, the company grew, establishing 181 Murphy stores in 11 states. By 1976, the company operated 529 stores. In 1985, the chain was purchased by Ames Department Stores. In 1989, it was sold again, this time to the parent company of McCrory stores, McCrory Corp., which filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and liquidated a short time later The photographs in this collection are of a G.C. Murphy store in Washington, D.C., and were taken around the years 1930-1945. One photograph is an interior shot of the store’s soda fountain counter. Eight other photographs document various window displays.

9 items.

Gabrielle Josephine Crofton (1873-1952) was the daughter of Gabrielle Josephine Shubrick Crofton (1835-1894) and Robert Erskine Anderson Crofton (1834-1898). During the time that these diaries were written, Gabrielle Josephine Crofton was residing in Washington, D.C.; her accounts reflect the leisured life of a middle-class, unmarried woman in the first quarter of the 20th century United States. Crofton recorded activities such as attending church, going to the movies, playing cards, walking, socializing, and dining with friends and families. She also described knitting items for soldiers during World War I. The two diaries cover the years from 1917 to 1926. The later diary includes one program from a 1922 graduation ceremony at Georgetown Visitation Convent, a Catholic school for girls whose graduating class that year included Ethel Crofton Hunt (1902-1972), the daughter of Gabrielle Josephine Crofton's sister, Mary Ethel Crofton Hunt (1875-1962).

2 items.

Genevieve Pittner of Monroe, Michigan, collected roller skating rink stickers between 1941 and 1942. She amassed a large collection by exchanging stickers by mail with other collectors, and she may have been a member of the Universal Roller Skating Sticker Exchange, a national network of sticker enthusiasts who traded. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: Sticker from Brooklyn Roller Skating Rink.

23 items.

A selection of images related to computer scientist Grace Hopper (1906-1992) and other female computer programming pioneers from the Hagley Digital Archives chosen by our staff. This does not include all material we have on this topic. For a more thorough search, start on our Search Hagley Collections page. If you have additional questions please contact us at AskHagley@hagley.org. Image: Grace Hopper presenting on COBOL programming language.

23 items.

This digital collection holds individual items from the Hagley Library's Published Collections department that are not otherwise associated with a larger library collection or thematic subject collection. Many of the items here are related to the du Pont family and the E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. These include two works by Bessie Gardner du Pont: a corporate history and a twelve-volume assemblage of translated correspondence of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. The online collection also contains various maps, a biography of Henry du Pont, and a compilation of pamphlets, clippings, and magazine articles relating to several DuPont Company facilities.

107 items.

This collection comprises material published by Hagley Museum and Library from 1998 to the present, including Hagley Newsletter, Hagley Magazine, annual reports, conference materials, and related items. Image: Detail from cover of Hagley Magazine, Spring 2009.

145 items.

This small collection primarily consists of scenic views of the Hagley property. The collection has been organized into three series: Brandywine and Hagley areas of Copeland estate, Rolling wheels, and Pierre Gentieu prints. The Brandywine and Hagley areas of Copeland estate series contains mainly landscape images of the property, though there are a few views that includes structures such as the mills, and a few that show the Copeland house and garden. The Rolling wheels series shows images of rolling wheels in the mills, as well as correspondence and clippings about the property. The Pierre Gentieu prints are photographs taken by Pierre A. Gentieu (1842-1930), a long-term employee of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company who created an invaluable photographic record of the company's Brandywine Mills at the turn of the century. These images include various Hagley property views that show the dam, mills, residential homes, shops, workers and wagons.

10 items.

This digital collection features a selection of images from Hagley Library's Portrait File depicting or associated with du Pont family members. Image: Louise du Pont Crowninshield with her bridesmaids.

217 items.

This is a small collection of articles, excerpts, and essays from Hagley Library's reference file. The material pertains to the history of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, other related Brandywine River Valley topics, and Hagley Library’s archival collections.

38 items.

A selection of images and documents related to Hanford Engineer Works and its operation by the DuPont Company from the Hagley Digital Archives chosen by our staff. This does not include all material we have on this topic. For a more thorough search, start on our Search Hagley Collections page. If you have additional questions please contact us at AskHagley@hagley.org. Image: Hanford Engineering Works.

38 items.

The Harlan & Hollingsworth Corporation began in 1836 as a railroad car manufacturer founded by Mahlon Betts and Samuel N. Pusey. Samuel Harlan joined the firm in 1837, and Elijah Hollingsworth followed in 1841. That same year, Harlan purchased Pusey's interest. After Betts retired in 1849, the firm took the name of Harlan & Hollingsworth. In 1843, the company leased a launching berth on the Christiana River and started doing marine engine work. Its shipbuilding activity increased markedly beginning in the 1850s and remained strong through World War I. The company specialized in private steam yachts and commercial shipbuilding. In 1902, the company was included in the horizontal merger of shipyards put together under the title of the United States Shipbuilding Company, which, in 1905, was reorganized as the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, a subsidiary of the new Bethlehem Steel Corporation. This digital collection consists of photographs from cost books documenting the company’s operations between 1902 and 1916. These ledgers summarize material and labor costs by department for each ship. In cases where this information is accompanied by photographic records or other images, that information has been digitized here, along with a cover page providing a basic overview for each contract. The cost books have not been digitized in their entirety.

73 items.

The Hay’s Fruit Juice Company was founded in in the year 1900 and produced Hay’s Five Fruit, a fruit juice syrup used to make and flavor beverages and desserts. This album was created after September 1923, following the completion of additional construction to a recently purchased new factory at 55-71 York Street, in Portland, Maine. This new location enabled the company to produce three to four thousand bottles of fruit juice syrup a day. The product was entirely produced and stored in the factory until shipping, with separate rooms for pressing fruit, mixing the syrup, filling bottles, and inventory storage. The Hay’s Fruit Juice Company photograph album contains photographs and advertisements. The photographs are primarily of the factory’s interior and have accompanying captions on the facing pages that describe the manufacturing process of Hay’s Five Fruit. There are two photographs of raspberry fields and workers. The advertisements and labels are for the company’s fruit juice syrup.

22 items.

Henry C. Walton was an industrial chemist who worked at Andrew Carnegie's Edgar Thomson Steel Works near Pittsburgh in the 1870s. In 1880 Walton became associated with Emile Geyelin, a Philadelphia engineer who had done considerable work for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. as both a machinist and hydraulic engineer. Walton and Geyelin joined with J.A. Mathieu, a charcoal manufacturer, to form Mathieu Geyelin & Walton, Ltd. The firm manufactured lead and calcium acetates for sale to Pittsburgh area steel manufacturers. The diary describes Walton's work as a chemist at the Edgar Thomson Works, including notations on the Bessemer process and analyses of steel produced by Carnegie and other manufacturers. It also contains information on the formation of Mathieu, Geyelin & Walton, Ltd., , including subsequent contracts with carpenters and merchants.

1 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.).

90 items.

Herbert S. Winokur, Jr. donated his collection of Enron Board Records to Hagley Museum and Library in 2010. The records, 1997-2001, are one of the few extant collections of Enron board materials. Items include board minutes; records of the executive, finance, and audit committees; and memorandum and e-mails. These records provide information about this landmark corporate bankruptcy.

135 items.

The oral histories presented here document the research and development processes that transformed Kevlar from a novel polymer in the laboratory to a life-changing product in the marketplace. Through many surprising twists and turns, the people profiled here managed to make Kevlar serve the complicated and occasionally contradictory interests of the DuPont company, scientific inquiry, the marketplace, and the general public. Their stories are a rich study in the business and technology of innovation. Interviews were conducted by John Kenly Smith, PhD, in 2014 and 2015. Special thanks to the 1916 Foundation, the friends and family of Mary Laird Silvia, and individual donors for support of this project.

6 items.

Founded by Karen and Richard Perez, Home Power magazine was published from October 1987 to November 2018 and played a central role in the mainstreaming of residential-​scale renewable energy systems. It provided a first-​of-​its-​kind networking hub for end-users, professional installers, and equipment manufacturers to interact, share ideas, and advance the use of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles.

188 items.

Hoopes Brothers & Darlington, Inc. began in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 1867 as a manufacturer of wooden spokes for wheels, and by the 1880s it had become one of the largest wooden wheel makers in the United States. The collection consists of miscellaneous images from the company, largely dating between 1900 and 1948, as well as advertising material and letterheads. Image: Automobile truck wheel.

64 items.

This digital collection combines multiple physical collections from the Library's holdings related to Hudson Maxim (1853-1927), the American inventor and chemist best known for his work in the development of smokeless gunpowder and military explosives. The materials here chronicle Hudson Maxim's life and work from the late 1880's, when he began working for his eldest brother, the inventor Hiram Stevens Maxim (1840-1916), to the final years of his life. They document not only his scientific work, but also his collaborations with the du Pont family and company, as well as his personal business affairs and family life. This digital collection also includes many materials from his second career as a public speaker and popular personality, known for expounding on a wide variety of topics ranging from scientific and military topics, to poetry, economics, social issues, public affairs, and local politics in his home of Hopatcong, New Jersey.

194 items.

The Indiana Ordnance Works was built near Charlestown, Indiana by the DuPont Company for the U.S. government. Construction began in 1940, and by 1941, the Works was manufacturing military explosives, propellants, and smokeless powder. The Works continued to manufacture ordnance for military use throughout the ensuing decades, though it was operated by a variety of corporate entities. In 1964, its name was changed to the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant. In 1992, it was deactivated, and the property was converted to other uses, including an industrial commerce center and a state park. This collection consists of photographs of the Ballistics Lab of the Indiana Ordnance Works taken during World War II, including views of testing and test facilities, laboratories, machinery, and male and female workers.

21 items.