Digital Collections

The John B. Stetson Company was a manufacturer of hats. The company was founded in 1865 by John B. Stetson (1830-1906) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its peak, the company employed over 5,000 people and consisted of nine acres and twenty-five buildings around the intersections of 5th Street and Germantown and Montgomery Avenues. Stetson provided generous employee benefits in order to stave off unionization. This led him to establish a school, a hospital, and a building and loan association for his employees, as well as perks such as sports leagues, Christmas turkeys, and Americanization classes. This is a small collection of photographs and other material relating to the company. It includes photographs of workers, workspaces, and worker’s amenities. It also includes materials documenting the company’s history and personnel policies.

14 items.

This digital collection features a small selection of 22 travel photographs from the John E. du Pont collection of Austin and du Pont families’ photographs. The images largely depict locations in Colorado and were taken by noted Western photographer, William Henry Jackson (1843-1942), in the late nineteenth century. Image: "Loaded."

22 items.

John Gordon Rideout (1898-1951) was a noted industrial designer and architect based primarily in Ohio. The images in this digital collection come from an album of negatives in a collection of Rideout's papers. Some of the images, likely dating to the early 1930s, depict Frank Lloyd Wright and his Spring Green, Wisconsin, estate, Taliesin. Others include portraits and candid images of family and friends; the fishing town of Leland, Michigan; an Easter church service; and a Gulf Co. service station. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: Frank Lloyd Wright in his study at Taliesin.

192 items.

John J. Raskob (1879-1950) was a prominent business and political figure in the early twentieth century. A top financial executive for both E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company and the General Motors Corporation, Raskob was heavily involved in politics, serving as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1928 to 1932. He was also a well-known Catholic noted for his charitable giving. The online collection is a small selection of items largely comprising correspondence and pamphlets dating from 1900 to 1950. Image: John J. Raskob as a young man.

415 items.

Advertising, both print and radio, developed as a prominent industry in the early decades of the twentieth century as popular magazine circulation exploded and the radio became ubiquitous in American households. This collection consists of digital access copies of publications and magazine advertisements for radios and other related household electronics dating from 1912 to 1980. Of note are 141 issues dating from 1945 to 1962 of Philco News, which was the employee newsletter for the Philco Corporation, as well as fifteen issues of Good News about RCA Radiotrons. Image: Cover of October 1960 issue of Philco News.

3039 items.

John W. Macklem (1867-1948) began working for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company as an errand boy at a young age and remained with the company his entire career. His collection of photographs, dating to the early twentieth century, depicts the landscape and buildings at the DuPont explosives’ manufacturing plants along Brandywine Creek near Wilmington, Delaware. On the back of each of the photographs, Macklem wrote extensive captions on the history of the site. Image: Rolling mills in Upper Hagley Yard.

44 items.

Joseph Bancroft, an Englishman trained in textile weaving in Lancashire, established his own cotton mill on the Brandywine near Wilmington, Delaware in 1831. The firm was incorporated as the Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company in 1889. The collection consists of general advertising, fashion photography, and product information for "Ban-Lon" and "Everglaze" -- synthetic fibers produced and marketed by Bancroft in the 20th century. In particular, the collection documents the Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company's sponsorship of the Miss America Pageant and the promotion of fabrics by Miss America from the years 1953 to 1967. Image: 1961 Ban-Lon fashions.

1662 items.

A career civil engineer with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Joseph T. Richards (1845-1933) participated in several large construction projects in the first decade of the twentieth century. One of these projects was Pennsylvania Station in New York, for which Richards chaired three committees of PRR operating officers that set the operating parameters for the design. This collection consists of the contents of a small portfolio of documents relating to the construction of the station and its associated yards and terminals. Image: 8th Avenue Elevation of Pennsylvania Station

42 items.

The leather manufacturing firm of Joshua Conner & Son was founded in 1848 by James Conner (1813-1880). It moved to Wilmington, Delaware, in 1858. After 1915, it operated under the name of Joshua Conner & Son, as the business was continued by Joshua Conner’s son, Joshua Conner (1842-1917), and grandson, Joshua Christy Conner (1883-1964). Early operations included the manufacture of harness, saddles, and trunks. Later the firm sold all types of trunks, luggage and athletic equipment, leather novelties, equestrian equipment, blankets and flags. It was recognized as one of the leading retail establishments in Delaware. This collection consists of five photographs of the storefront, store interiors and portraits of the proprietors. There are two views of the Conner storefront at 235-237 Market St., Wilmington, Delaware, and one interior view showing a display counter and two clerks. In addition, there are studio portraits of Joshua Conner and Joshua Christy Conner, his son.

5 items.

Keith Reeves Rodney was a chemist or metallurgical engineer associated with the Fairmount Steel Company in Philadelphia. In 1905 he and several companions toured a number of the steel mills and machine shops in France, Italy, Sweden, and England. Of the two diaries kept by Rodney on this tour, the first merely records his travels. It contains little technical information but lists places visited, hotels, sightseeing tours, names of contacts and notations on the reception (friendly or unfriendly) he received at particular sites. The second contains more detailed descriptions of the various mills and shops visited. It provides data on the processes employed and the rates of operation. It represents an interesting vignette of the European steel and ordnance industries during a period of rapid growth for German and Italian companies and a period of decline for French and English firms.

1 items.

Kelvinator was founded in Detroit in 1916 after previously operating as the Electro-Automatic Refrigerating Company. Nathaniel B. Wales (1883-1974) was the founding engineer, and he had been developing home refrigeration units. He received financial backing from automobile executive Arnold H. Goss. The company name was an ode to the British physicist who developed the absolute temperature scale that also bears his name, Lord Kelvin. By 1923, Kelvinator controlled 80% of the electric refrigerator market. In the 1920s, Kelvinator acquired both Leonard Refrigerator Company and Nizer Corporation. In 1937, it merged with Nash Motor Company and became a division of Nash-Kelvinator. The company expanded into other household appliances like hot water heaters, room air conditioners, and electric ranges. In 1968, Kelvinator was purchased by White Consolidated Industries, which in turn was purchased by A. B. Electrolux in 1986. This album appears to be a wholesaler's catalog showing sketched illustrations of the exteriors and interiors of Kelvinator refrigerator models in the D, S, and U series; three of the prints show only compressors and motors. No price list or text is included.

18 items.

Ken White Associates, Inc., formed by industrial designer Ken White in 1947, was a design firm that developed plans and designs for thousands of independent and academic bookstores throughout the United States, as well as many other types of retail businesses. The company also played a leading role in introducing convenience stores and innovative food service options on college campuses. The records of the company include organizational files documenting the corporate organization; financial papers; project files; publications by White and his son, as well as the records of the partnerships and other companies White formed as he expanded his business and services. The collection also contains files on White's professional activities, including papers related to conferences, conventions, and trade shows, memberships in various organizations, and seminars and talks. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

53 items.

Lammot du Pont, Jr. (1909-1964) assembled a large collection of books, manuscripts, prints, drawings and photographs relating to the history of aeronautics from the first balloon flights through the 1940s. The online collection primarily consists of photographs that depict subjects such as airplanes, balloons and dirigibles, seaplanes, male and female pilots, long-distance and round-the-world flights, airplane crashes, air races, flying instruction, and the Arctic schooner Effie M. Morrissey. Nearly all of the photographs are news service images, many accompanied by original caption information. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: New World's Record for Helicopter.

677 items.

Born in 1831, Lammot du Pont was one of the most eminent chemists in the history of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. An engineer by training, he introduced sodium nitrate to the manufacture of powder for blasting and mining purposes and made important improvements in machinery and manufacturing techniques. By 1865, he led all the company’s manufacturing units outside of Delaware, and in 1880 he organized the Repauno Chemical Company for the manufacture of high explosives in New Jersey. He was killed in an explosion while conducting experiments with nitroglycerin in 1884. This online collection is a small selection of items from the Lammot du Pont papers and comprises gunpowder labels, correspondence related to gunpowder explosions, and other business papers. Image: Lammot du Pont engraving by Samuel Sartain.

24 items.

This collection was purchased in 1971 as part of a lot that included two other small collections. The photographer is unknown, but a box included in the collection, as well as the images themselves, associate fifteen of the twenty-two images with the Lehigh Valley Railroad. While the photographs in this collection are undated, engine numbers visible in the images suggest that these glass negatives were created no earlier than 1934 and no later than 1948, assuming that they were taken roughly contemporaneously. There are an additional seven glass negatives, larger than the first fifteen, depicting a small variety of undated, unidentified scenes. The relationship of these items to the negatives depicting the rolling stock of the Lehigh Valley Railroad is unclear, as is their relationship to one another. These seven glass negatives depict a naval sailing vessel that is probably the USS Constitution, the shipwrecked SS Morro Castle, a group photograph in front a church, and two views of an outdoor natural recreation area. The image of the SS Morro Castle likely dates to 1934, and the remaining six may as well.

23 items.

This letterbook contains tissue copies of the outgoing correspondence dating from 1899 to 1903 of inventor and manufacturer E. E. Hendrick (1832-1909). Although nominally dealing with his actions as president of the Hendrick Manufacturing Company, most of the letters concern personal business, such as purchases of household goods and cigars. Most importantly, they reveal Hendicks' interest in early automobiles, with correspondence with dealers and suppliers. Hendrick tried both electric and steam automobiles, and many of the letters are in the nature of complaints over such things as inadequate horsepower, poor riding quality, or the wrong size of tires. The letterbook has not been digitized in its entirety. The online collection comprises only the correspondence relating to automobiles. Image: E. E. Hendrick to American Electric Vehicle Company, 1900-08-01.

217 items.

The Link-Belt Company was founded by William Dana Ewart (1851-1908), who had invented the detachable link-belt in 1874. The flexible metal belt provided a superior system of power transmission and was first used widely in farm machinery. It was later introduced in industry wherever endless-belt motion was required, particularly for elevating and conveying grain, coal, etc. Out of this grew the manufacture and design of machinery used in all sorts of conveyors and elevators, making the company the foremost of its kind in the world. This item is a booklet of 11 cyanotype photographs of locomotive coaling stations designed, erected, and equipped by the Link-Belt Engineering Company. The views include coaling stations in Croton, East Albany, and Lyons, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and New Buffalo, Michigan built for the New York Central and Hudson Railroad, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, and the Chicago and Western Michigan Railway Company. The photographs show details of conveyor belts and bottom dumping coal cars. Every photograph has a caption.

5 items.

This collection was purchased as a lot from a dealer in 1969. It includes an array of subjects, though the majority of the identified images document locomotives, railroad cars, railroad stations, and other railroad infrastructure. Railroads represented in these images include the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Central Railroad of New Jersey, Erie Railroad, Lehigh Valley Railroad, New York Central Lines, Pennsylvania Railroad, Reading Railroad, as well as a small number of other railway companies. The collection also includes landscapes and cityscapes, many of which were taken by photographers William H. Rau (1855-1921) and James Zellner (1836-1897). All of the photographs in this collection are undated, though some of them can be assigned approximate dates based on information available. While a number of the dates assigned are questionable, most of the images in this collection appear to have been captured between approximately 1860 and 1950. Many locations are currently unidentified, but where it is possible to identify the locations in these images, the large majority of images document sites in Pennsylvania.

224 items.

The Longwood Manuscripts comprise the manuscript collections of P. S. du Pont (1870-1954). They made up the core collection of the former Longwood Library, and later the collection became known as The Longwood Manuscripts after the library merged with the Hagley Museum in 1961. The collection is an invaluable resource, tracing the history of the du Pont family from eighteenth-century France to 1954. This online collection is a small selection of materials from the Longwood Manuscripts. Many of the items digitized to date relate to the early history of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company and include correspondence, other business papers, and drawings of powder mills and machinery by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. Additional items relate to other early du Pont business ventures in the United States, including Du Pont, Bauduy & Company; Du Planty, McCall & Company; and Brandywine Mill Seat Company. Image: E. I. du Pont drawing of sieves used for graining gunpowder, detail.

449 items.

The brothers Louis Edward Levy (1846-1919) and Max Levy (1857-1926) founded a photoengraving business in Baltimore in 1875. In 1877 they moved to Philadelphia and reorganized the firm as the Levytype Company. Here, they introduced their invention of a new photochemical engraving process, which they called "Levy-type". Other inventions followed, including the engraved glass grating known as the "Levy line screen," which became universally used for producing half-tone photoengravings; the acid blast, or etching machine; and the etch-powdering machine. In 1900, the firm was renamed the Graphic Arts Company, and the brothers added a printing and publishing department to their business. This album contains personal cyanotype photographs. Included are views of a house in Philadelphia; the Pennsylvania Academy of Natural Science; scenes in Boston, Roxbury, Dedham, Concord, Northboro, and Nantucket, Massachusetts, including exterior photographs of the Alcott House and the Hawthorn house in Concord, and the Jonathan Fairbanks House in Dedham; a biology class at M.I.T.; snapshots of children and other people; an unidentified photographer and his camera; and various interiors.

10 items.

Lukens Steel Company was a medium-sized producer of specialty steel products and one of the top three producers of steel plate in the United States. Lukens Steel Company is noted for being the first industrial company in the United States led by a woman, Rebecca Lukens (1794-1854). The online collection includes woodcuts showing the early history of the mill, interior and exterior views of factory buildings, various depictions of machinery, employees both at work and leisure, floods in 1955 and 1973, and twentieth-century aerial views of the Coatesville plant. Other items depict the owning families, company anniversary celebrations, and philanthropic activities supported by Charles Lukens Huston. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: Multiple flame cutting.

887 items.

MCI Communications Corporation (MCI) was a large telecommunications company. It was organized in October 1963 in Joliet, Illinois as Microwave Communications, Inc. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

1781 items.

This digital collection features a selection of maps, largely dating to the first two decades of the twentieth century, of the Brandywine Works of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, now the site of Hagley Museum and Library. Image: Lower Yard of Brandywine Mills.

64 items.

Marshall Johnson (1938 - ), an industrial designer, worked for some of the most well-known small appliance companies and designed many popular products. He began working at Black & Decker, Inc., designing portable power tools and lawn and garden power tools. He went on to work as a corporate industrial designer for ALCOA, and later as a designer of small appliances and cookware for Wear-Ever, Proctor Silex, and Hamilton Beach, as those companies merged and evolved through the years. The Marshall B. Johnson research collection of industrial design and housewares consists of Johnson's career files and artifacts from the various companies for whom he worked, historical and research materials on the companies and their products, files on industrial designers, and Johnson's personal papers which include materials on his family, childhood, education, interests, and other activities

100 items.

In 1887, the Pennsylvania Steel Company constructed a steel plant at Sparrow's Point, Maryland on the mouth of the Patapsco River. Shortly after construction was completed, the plant was incorporated as the Maryland Steel Company of Baltimore County. That same year, 1891, the Marine Department, which included a shipyard, was created. The steel-works and shipyard continued to operate as the Maryland Steel Company until 1916, when Bethlehem Steel acquired the Pennsylvania Steel Company and its subsidiary, Maryland Steel. This collection consists of 3 albums containing 204 cyanotype photographs taken at the Maryland Steel Company's steel plant and shipyard between 1890 and 1894. The first album contains exterior and interior photographs of buildings involved in steel production and steel workers. The second album consists of photographs of the company’s shipyard. This album includes many views of the construction of the shipyard, as well as interior and exterior photographs of shipyard buildings in use. The third album documents the construction and launch of ships built by the company, primarily tugs and coastal passenger steamships.

207 items.

This collection includes 135 images dating largely from 1901 to 1912 from the Matheson Automobile Company, a small automaker headquartered out of Holyoke, Massachusetts and later Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. Matheson automobiles were particularly popular for the power they provided, winning trophies in numerous hill climb competitions in the first decade of the twentieth century. The company's hand-built and custom-made cars were eventually pushed out of the market by smaller, cheaper, more mass-produced vehicles. The images in the collection depict automobile races, a Matheson European tour, and Matheson automobiles being manufactured and in use. Image: H.N. Harding at wheel during 1907 Giant's Despair Hillclimb.

135 items.

The Maxim Silencer Company was the first company to manufacture gun silencers for commercial use. The company was founded in 1908 as the Maxim Silent Firearms Company by Hiram Percy Maxim (1869-1936) in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1912 Maxim incorporated his business as the Maxim Silencer Company. Maxim was an engineer and inventor. This small collection consists of photographs of rifles with silencers, the company's World War II Army E. Navy award ceremony, and a few images of Hiram Percy Maxim and his son Hiram Hamilton Maxim.

27 items.

The images in this collection document the construction of the town and mine buildings of Boswell, Pennsylvania, a mining town founded by Thomas Taylor Boswell (1861-1929), the first president and supervisor of the Merchants Coal Company. The town was developed to serve as housing for the company’s slope-mining operations. The town consisted of 1,600 lots laid out over 14,000 acres. The town and its mine were serviced by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. The mine, Orenda Mine #1, extracted semi-bituminous coal. A steam engine hoisted the coal cars up a mining slope. At its peak in the 20th century, the mine employed 900 workers and extracted over 3,000 tons of coal a day. Merchants Coal was a subsidiary of United Coal Company, which also operated the neighboring company town of Jerome, Pennsylvania. In 1919, the company became the Hillman Coal and Coke Company, named after the United Coal Company’s primary stockholder, J.H. Hillman, who then merged the company with the mining operations of J.H. Hillman & Sons.

22 items.

Following the repeal of national Prohibition in 1933, many Americans were eager to once again legally purchase beer, wine, and liquor. It was not long before a domestic alcoholic beverage industry soon re-emerged to meet this consumer demand. These industries and businesses would soon get a further economic boost in the years after World War II, as an increasingly affluent white middle class relocated to the nation's growing suburbs, where larger living spaces combined with disposable income to create new opportunities for private entertaining and the accumulation of consumer products. The items in this digital collection represent a portion of the Hagley Library's holdings documenting liquor manufacturers' and distributors' activities and outreach to these consumers, as well as the attitudes, trends, and material objects that made up American cocktail culture during this era.

38 items.

The Midvale Steel Company manufactured steel parts for the railroad and the armaments industries. The company was established in 1867 in the Nicetown area of Germantown, Philadelphia by William Butcher. Upon his death in 1871, the Butcher Steel Works was taken over by the principal stockholders. The renamed Midvale Steel Works became best known for its its early experimentation with alloy steels and for its production of railroad wheels cast from open-hearth steel, one of the earliest uses of this type of steel in the United States.. In 1880, it was renamed the Midvale Steel Company. It began manufacturing ordnance in 1895 and marine engines in 1900. Expansion during World War I led to a new name in 1915; the Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company, and additional plants in Johnstown and Coatesville, PA. In 1923, these new plants were acquired by the Bethlehem Steel Company. In 1955, the Philadelphia works merged with the Heppenstall Steel Company to become Midvale-Heppenstall Company. The Philadelphia plant closed in 1976.. This album contains photographs showing exteriors and interiors of Midvale Steel facilities in the Nicetown area of Germantown. There are also close-ups of machinery, products (including naval guns, railroad wheels, propellers, and miscellaneous castings), and tests of armor plate.

82 items.

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

5 items.

The Morris family of Philadelphia were brewers, merchants, land speculators, manufacturers, and prominent participants in public affairs. John Thompson Morris (1847-1915) founded the Morris Arboretum in Germantown, PA and served as overseer of public schools in Philadelphia. He and his sister Lydia (1849-1932) traveled around the world together on several Grand Tour trips from 1881 to 1906. This collection contains fourteen albums of photographs and postcards from their travels. Currently, only two of the albums have been digitized.

2 items.

The Morse Dry Dock Dial was an in-house periodical for employees of the Morse Dry Dock and Repair Company of New York City. The company was a leading shipbuilder and refit facilities during the early 20th century. Among the artists whose illustrations appeared on the cover included Edward Hopper. The digitized collection of the Morse Dry Dock Dial owned by the Hagley Library covers a period from 1919 to 1923. Image: Cover of February 1919 issue.

59 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 images 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.

2003 items.

The National Automobile Dealer's Association (NADA) was founded in 1917 to represent the interests of auto dealers in the United States. NADA currently represents 16,000 new car and truck dealers encompassing 32,500 franchises. The material in this archive includes NADA publications covering 1934 to 2014. In addition the archive includes NADA convention materials, press releases, and video content. Access to this collection was made possible through the generous support of the National Automobile Dealers Association, www.nada.org

3445 items.

The 1934 National Electrical and Radio Exposition was held in New York City at Madison Square Garden from September 19th to the 29th. The Electrical Association of New York organized the exposition. It was one of the annual radio and electronic products trade shows held in the city in the 1920s through the 1940s. Similar radio expositions during the era were hosted in other major U.S. cities sponsored by local trade associations that brought together manufacturers, retailers, and customers. The expositions included national manufacturers and large retailers from around the country to display, demonstrate, and sell their products. Among the more prominent products featured at the expositions during this period were radios, household appliances (vacuums, ovens, refrigerators, etc.), home/industrial lighting, and heating/air conditioning technology. This item is an album forty-five photographs taken during the exposition. The photographs are primarily of various companies individual displays. Companies represented include RCA, Westinghouse Electric, Singer Sewing Machine, General Electric, Hoover, Leonard, among others.

45 items.

The Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes in New York was established in 1910 to assist black migrants arriving from the rural South in adjusting to life in the urban North. Following a series of mergers, the organization's name was changed and shortened to the National Urban League in 1920. The interracial coalition of civil rights advocates that made up the League adopted a mission to help African-Americans "to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights." This mission was manifested through the provision of community-based social services, advocacy on the behalf of black workers, and other efforts to address the problems black Americans faced in securing equal access to employment, recreation, education, housing, medical care, and government services. This digital collection contains publications in the Hagley Library's catalog that were issued by the national and regional branches of the Urban League. In addition to the publications below, the Library also carries Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, an academic and literary journal published by the National Urban League from 1923 to 1949.

14 items.

Series of photographs taken by De W. C. Ward, a New York City photographer, and compiled into the photobook "New York Tunnel Extension of the Pennsylvania Railroad," ca. 1910. They document the recently completed tunnel extension with images of the exterior and interior of Pennsylvania Station in New York City as well as freight yards, railroad tunnels, rail stations, and railroad service buildings in the surrounding area. This album is part of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company photograph collection, which has not been digitized in its entirety. Image: Pennsylvania Station: Main Concourse - General View, c. 1910.

37 items.

Edited and printed for the Newport Plant employees of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. Hagley's holdings of this magazine include selected issues dating from 1947 to 1983.

108 items.

The story of harnessing the great waterpower of Niagara Falls dates from 1890 when a 'power tunnel' was dug to bring the water to a central power station from which it was distributed as electrical energy. Westinghouse built three AC dynamos for Power Station No. 1 located 1.5 miles above Niagara Falls. In 1895, the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Manufacturing Company started building Power Station No. 2. The obvious success of utilizing Niagara's waterpower began when electricity was first delivered to Buffalo an impressive twenty-two miles away on November 16, 1898. These two power stations were closed after more than sixty years of service in 1961. Many of the photographs in this collection document the erection of wooden poles for power transmission lines between Niagara Falls and Buffalo. There are also photographs showing the power houses and transformer building, which was designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White; these include exteriors as well as interiors. The latter includes 3 phase rotary AC generators made by General Electric and air blast transformers. There are some photos of the Niagara River Rapids, and two views of the interurban trolley line that was powered by the Niagara Falls Power Company.

36 items.

Nora C. Edwards established the Edwards Skirt Supporter Company around 1903 in Spooner, Wisconsin to market and sell her patented invention. The purpose of the skirt supporter was to fasten a dress skirt and a shirt waist together, preventing the shirt waist from slipping up the back and the dress skirt from dropping below the waistline. From 1903 to early 1905, Edwards traveled throughout the Southern and Midwestern United States, making contacts and hiring women agents to sell the skirt supporters. By September 1905, Nora Edwards permanently relocated to Buffalo, New York, where she maintained the company's headquarters. The collection comprises personal and business correspondence received by Nora Edwards between 1887 and 1917 from family members, agents, friends, and patent attorneys. The letters often combine personal and business matters. Letters from friends and family members mention Edwards’ business as well as family matters and give descriptive accounts of life in rural Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Indiana. Letters from agents for the Edwards Skirt Supporter Company contain orders for additional supporters and descriptions of working habits and efforts to interest customers. Image: Printed flyer for the Edwards Skirt Supporter Company, on top of which a sales agent has written to Nora Edwards.

156 items.

A selection of images and documents related to Nylon from the Hagley Digital Archives selected by our staff. This does not include all material we have on this topic. 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.

15 items.

An oral history project initiated to provide supplementary material for Hagley’s 2015 exhibit, 'Driving Desire', that features items from the Z. Taylor Vinson Transportation Collection. The three interviewees, Rick Shnitzler, Fred Simeone, and Yann Saunders, all were personal acquaintances of Z. Taylor Vinson as well as highly involved in either collecting or dealing auto ephemera and/or automobiles.

3 items.

This collection includes a compilation of oral histories that have been digitized and are available online. This is not a comprehensive collection of all oral history content at Hagley. For more information, please contact us at research@hagley.org.

15 items.

A collection of approximately 200 interviews conducted between 1953 and 1990 with people who lived and worked in New Castle County, Delaware. The recollections of the subjects cover a period from about 1900 to 1960. While the majority of the interviews are with those who have a connection with the DuPont Company or du Pont family either as employees or inhabitants of the area surrounding the company's operation on the Brandywine River, the collection also includes interviews with those who worked in other industries in Delaware during this era such as Hodgson Woolen Mill, Lobdell Car Wheel Company, Hoopes Brother & Darlington, and Joseph Bancroft & Sons. In addition to documenting work and labor during this period, the interviewers delve deeply into the social and cultural lives of their subjects. Issues related to domesticity, gender, education, childhood, ethnicity, medicine, etc. are among the topics covered in the interviews. Also of note are interviews with a journalist (Fred Reybold) and an early broadcaster (Willard Wilson) who worked in Delaware. Image: Vance Mitchell during 1968 interview.

501 items.

Over half the mushrooms in the United States are grown in and around the town of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, which proudly calls itself the mushroom capital of the world. This oral history collection brings together interviews with individuals whose experiences capture the many different kinds of work and knowledge involved in mushroom cultivation, harvesting, packing, distribution, and marketing, and how those processes have changed over time.

16 items.

John Raskob (1879-1950) was a financial executive for the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., General Motors, and financier of the Empire State Building. During the 1920s Raskob became active in Democratic Party politics and from 1928 to 1932 served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He was an important financial backer of Governor Alfred E. Smith (1873-1944) when he ran for president in 1928. This collection consists of seven oral history interviews conducted between 2004 and 2005 with members of John J. Raskob’s immediate family, primarily his children and grandchildren. The interviews are largely personal in nature and often focus on family relationships.

28 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. Former DuPont Company employee Joe Plasky interviewed individuals who worked in all sectors of the business, from research and engineering to marketing, during the period from approximately 1950 to 2000. The development of new materials, products, and processes; construction of new plants; changes in marketing and personnel systems; and the introduction of computer systems are among the topics covered in the interviews.

203 items.