Founded in 1846, Pennsylvania Railroad Company (PRR) was a leading industrial and transportation force throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This collection features a cyanotype and a photographic copy print of an image depicting the first passenger car created for PRR, most likely taken in 1893 in relation to Chicago World's Columbian Exposition.

Alfred Irénée du Pont (1864-1935) was the eldest son of E.I. du Pont (1829-1877). He joined the family gunpowder firm in 1884. This item is portrait of Alfred I. du Pont, dated September 1881.

Wilmington is the largest city in Delaware located on the Christiana and Brandywine Rivers. This collections contains four mounted photographic prints showing facades of Wilmington, Delaware, bank buildings

Brandywine Springs County Park was a popular amusement park in the rural countryside outside Wilmington from approximately 1890 to 1923. This collection consists of a postcard of the arched entrance to the park.

This collection consists of photographs documenting many of the processes used to make bricks in Centre County, Pennsylvania, and some coal mining images. Brick works existed in Coleville, Wingate, Milesburg, Howard, Port Matilda, Snow Shoe, Orviston and Monument. By the 1960s, all the brick works have shut down for mostly economic reasons.

The Century of Progress International Exposition, otherwise known as the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, was held along Lake Michigan and Northerly Island Park in Chicago, Illinois, from May 27, 1933, to October 31, 1934. The theme was "Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms." This small collection of photographs shows various views of the fair. The images are snapshots of buildings, exhibits, and amusements taken by an unknown photographer throughout the fairgrounds. The collection provides insight into what the experience of an average fairgoer was like.

Charles Mattathias Jacobs (1850-1919) was a British tunneling engineer. This is a digital copy of a painting of Jacobs at approximately sixty years of age, in court dress.

A poster stamp is physically similar to a postage stamp, but it is without a face value or denomination. Poster stamps were created to commemorate and promote products, events, or ideas. The Exposition of Chemical Industries (now called The Chem Show) was first put on in 1915. It serves to bring together manufacturers and suppliers with people who work in the chemical process industry. This collection consists of gummed stickers with colorful images or designs advertising various functions and companies related to the chemical industry.

The heyday of cigar band artwork spans from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries with many of the companies adopting pictorial displays as well as text. The bands were produced through lithographic printing methods. This item is an album of cigar bands collected in the early twentieth century.

The Collection of Philadelphia merchants records comprises the papers of major and minor merchant houses in Philadelphia throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and primarily documents trade with major port cities in Western Europe and the West Indies. Included are the papers of merchants Andrew Clow & Co., Dutilh & Wachsmuth, Manuel Eyre, and George Louis de Stockar, along with records of other miscellaneous merchants from the Philadelphia area. The records include correspondence, accounts, bills, orders, invoices and other material that give insight into the rise of capitalism in the Early Republic.

This collection is a list on cardboard of the contents of a Conestoga wagon toolbox. Conestoga wagons were used to haul freight between farms and cities in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Ohio between the years 1750 and 1855.

These photographs document the abandoned site where the Peoples Railway trolley car passed under the tracks of the Wilmington and Northern Railroad in Rockford Park near the Brandywine Creek. The Peoples Railway Company started in 1900 to bring visitors via electric trolley to the Brandywine Springs Amusement Park outside of Wlimington. The Wilmington and Northern Railroad Company was a branch of the Reading railroad system running in a north-south direction between Wilmington, Delware and Reading, Pennsylvania. Its object was to connect the various industrial plants located along Brandywine Creek with other railroads leading to the west and to the anthracite coal regions.

For what appears a brief moment in early aviation history, the Wright Brothers competed their airplanes in public demonstrations. The Curtiss Exhibition Co.'s Glenn Curtiss piloted one of his biplanes, and Walter Brookins piloted a Wright biplane. Three photos show the Curtiss biplane on the beach before take-off with a Boardwalk crowd nearby. Two others show the Curtiss and Wright airplanes separately in flight.

The Chicago Railroad Fair was the first exposition after the Second World War and the last exposition that featured railroads as its theme. It marked the centennial of the arrival of railroads to Chicago and their role in westward expansion. This is a postcard of the narrow gauge Deadwood Central train that carried visitors around the fairground.

Aerial view showing crowded fairgrounds. The Delaware State Fair began as the Kent and Sussex County Fair in 1920, and is now known as the Delaware State Fair. 1928 was the last year the Delaware state fair was held at the Elsmere site.

By the time this manuscript was written in the late eighteenth century, the inclusion of fireworks at celebrations across Europe had been well-established for centuries. In the second half of the eighteenth century, commercial firework displays in particular rose in popularity among audiences across the social spectrum. This collection is comprised of a single manuscript volume with contemporary binding, quarter leather, with marbled paper over boards, all edges speckled in red, and silk endbands. Produced in England circa 1780, the volume consists of 13 leaves containing ink drawings of designs for artificial fireworks.

DuPont Street was one of the oldest streets in San Francisco's Chinatown district, it was named in honor of Commodore Samuel Francis du Pont (1803-1865) of the United States Navy. Dupont Street was changed to Grant Avenue in 1886. This print is a view of Dupont Street, in the Chinatown area of San Francisco, with an insert image of a "Chinese Vegetable Pedler."

From 1802 to 1921, Eleutherian Mills was a gunpowder mill site used for the manufacture of explosives by the duPont family business. The name also refers to the house and gardens on the hill above the mills, which was the first duPont family home in America. This collections contains slides and color snapshot photographs of the garden at Eleutherian Mills. Also included is an 8 mm. home movie.

Ernest du Pont (1880-1944) and his elder brother Francis Irenee du Pont (1873-1942) founded the U.S.F. Powder Company in 1919, which produced flashless cannon powder. This item is a cabinet card photograph of Ernest du Pont (1880-1944) as a young child.

This collection consists of thirty-five glass negatives and one box. It documents locations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s Fairmount Park system. While the photographer is unidentified, and the images are undated and unlabeled, most images appear to depict Wissahickon Valley Park, historically part of the Fairmount Park system.

The DuPont Company is a chemical company which commercially produces synthetic fibers such as Kevlar. This collection consists of three pieces of artwork which were created for the DuPont Company Textile Fibers Department and hung in a shared work area. The artwork are photostats and are signed “ELF”. The three pictures show various small, cheerful animals making synthetic fiber by three different methods that are actually used (in slightly more sophisticated form) industrially.

Games of chance such as poker, blackjack, roulette, and craps are common table games played at casinos. This is a small collection of photographs and ephemera related to casino equipment. There are professional photographs and prints of blackjack, craps, and roulette tables, although it cannot be determined who the manufacturers are of these tables. None of the images is dated; the range is likely between the 1930s and 1940s.

This diary's author is not given; however, many details indicate that the writer is likely Thomas R. Robinson (1889-1972), a thirty-two-year-old farmer mainly working as a coal miner, lumberman, and railroad worker. This item is a manuscript handwritten diary. The entries are dated February 20, 1922, through April 9, 1923; these include the weather, who the author worked beside each day, his duties and responsibilities, and other tasks he took upon himself to fulfill. This item will be of significant interest to labor historians wanting a view of daily life from the worker's point of view.

Rare documentation of wooden 2-story house in Greenville, Delaware (New Castle County).

Hardware stores sell household hardware for home improvement directly to customers. This is an image of the exterior of an unidentified hardware store. Three men are posed in front.

Soap traces its history all the way back to the Babylonians in 2800 BC. However, bar soap only dates back to the late eighteenth century. The use of bar soap became the norm in the mid-nineteenth century. By this time soap could be mass produced and mass marketed. Many of the large bar soap companies were established during this time. This collection consists of 155 hospitality soap wrappers that have been flattened. The soap wrappers generally contain the name of the hotel, city and state, as well as a logo or graphic of some kind. Most wrappers include the brand name and product name, though a few do not have any information about the soap listed on the wrapper. All of the hotels are in the United States, not all of the states are represented in the collection. This collection would be useful for those researching package design, logos, or the soap industry. Potentially the collection also indicates relationships between specific hotel companies and their personal hygiene vendors.

Elsmere is a town in New Castle County in Delaware. This collection consists of six photographs of miscellaneous houses in Elsmere, which were loaned to the Hagley Museum and Library for copy.

Joseph Horn (1861-1941) and Frank Hardart (1850-1918) founded Horn & Hardart, a food service company, in 1888. In 1902, Horn and Hardart opened their first Automat in Philadelphia. The first New York City Automat opened in 1912, and other locations followed in both cities. The Automat became a huge success in Philadelphia and New York City, daily serving hundreds of thousands of people in its heyday. This item is a framed portrait photograph of Joseph Horn from around the 1930s.

The author appears to have been a young man living on his mother's farm near Danville, Montour County, Pennsylvania, who earned additional money by casual day labor. The diary is a standard pocket diary of the period with notations of work done and other daily activities, with a small cash book section at the rear.

This reproduction (copied from an original cabinet card) is of Lea Pusey (1820-1896) photographed through a large block of clear ice. Pusey created the plate process, a method to make commercial ice and was the founder of Diamond Ice Company.

Mary A. Ferraro (b. 1851) is presumably the mother of Pierre Ferraro (b. 1878) and Eugene Ferraro, both of which worked for the DuPont Company and were all residents of Walkers Bank at Hagley Mills. This item is a portrait of a woman identified only as the mother of Ferraro.

Match cover or a matchbook cover is a thin piece of cardboard that is folded around a set of match sticks. Chemist, John Walker (1781-1859) invented the match stick in 1827. Joshua Pusey (1842-1906?), an inventor and attorney patented matchbook covers in 1892. Within a short time hotels, restaurants, airlines, and all kinds of stores began advertising using matchbook covers. This collection is eight volumes of matchbook covers, each volume contains approximately 330-570 matchbooks. The matchbooks are graphic advertisements for various businesses, services, or products. The industries most represented are hotels, restaurants, clubs, and bars. There are a large amount of matchbooks from banks/insurance companies, automobile companies, airlines, food stores, drug stores, clothing stores, among others.

Trading stamps were small paper coupons, given to customers by merchants, that had a minimal cash value. Customers could save these coupons and exchange them with the trading stamp company for premiums. The use of these coupons grew with the proliferation of chain gas stations and supermarkets in the early 20th century. Two perforated sheets of "merchant's coupons" (possibly trading stamps) are included, one with fifteen stamps and the other with ten. The coupons in this collection have no markings to determine the merchant or trading stamp company of origin.

Montchanin is an unincorporated community located near Greenville, Delaware. It is named for Anne Alexandrine de Montchanin (1720-1756), mother of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817), who was a French political economist and diplomat who emigrated to Delaware with his sons. The plat depicts the area between Brandywine Creek, Barley Mill Road, and Kennett Pike and includes 85 buildings and residents' names.

The Waterworks in Cooperstown, New York was built on the side of a mill in 1870, with an addition built in 1890. The ship "Mohican" was built circa 1900 and scrapped in 1936. This collection consists of two items: one black and white photograph of Waterworks, Cooperstown, New York and black and white postcard view of ship "Mohican."

Northern Delaware (current day New Castle County) was settled by Swedes in the seventeenth century. This collections contains ten aerial photographs of the Northeastern Delaware border with Pennsylvania, along the Delaware River.

Commercial art, or advertising art, is art created for an enterprise to communicate reasons to buy goods and services, to create a recognizable logo, or to detail the correct performance of a task. This album consists of examples of original commercial art including lettering, letterheads, labels, a postcard, point-of-sale advertising, newspaper advertising, sketches of people, color separation examples, and a drawing of tableware.

Commercial art, or advertising art, is art created for an enterprise to communicate reasons to buy goods and services, to create a recognizable logo, or to detail the correct performance of a task. The collection consists of original drawings, sketches, and paintings for unidentified cosmetic, powder, and perfume packaging.

Pierre Samuel "P.S." du Pont (1870-1954) was the great grandson of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834), founder of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, and that company played a major role in P.S. du Pont's life. He is most well-known for developing the preeminent botanical gardens, Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. This item is a matted portrait of P.S. du Pont, autographed on front beneath image area.

World's Fairs or International Expositions are large-scale exhibitions highlighting technology, agriculture, and other innovations of national or cultural significance. The New York World's Fair occurred in Flushing Meadows, Queens, from April 30, 1939, to October 31, 1940. The theme was "The World of Tomorrow." This souvenir diary and photograph album combines official drawings and photographic images of buildings at the 1939 New York World's Fair with a personal photograph album and diary section, in which the reader was to record his or her own memories of the fair. The diarist who completed this souvenir remains unidentified.

Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) was a noted French Physiocrat and economic advisor to Jacques Necker and King Louis XVI. In 1784, Louis XVI made him a noble through the process of noblesse de lettres, which added the de Nemours suffix to his name. In the aftermath of the French Revolution he and his family emigrated to the United States where his son Eleuthère Irénée du Pont established the gun powder manufacturer E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. These photographs show a close-up of the Place Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours metal plaque and the building on which it hangs in Nemours France, ancestral home of the du Pont family.

Quarrying is the act of extracting natural stones to use in building materials. Throughout the 1920s quarries were the largest employers of African Americans. This collection consists of two panoramic photographs of unidentified quarries, one with workers, one without.

The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) was chartered in 1846 to completing an all-rail road across the state. Collection consists of three unidentified photographs of stone arched railroad bridges, probably on the Pennsylvania railroad.

This collection reflects material from a small amount of manufacturers operating in the Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey, largely in the early-to-mid 19th century. The records primarily include correspondence, bills, receipts, and accounts. There are also various legal papers and testimonies concerning suits involving land and water rights in Burlington County, New Jersey, with descriptions of miscellaneous dams, saw, grist, woolen, and fulling mills.

Richards, London & Kelley manufactured pattern-making machinery for woodworking. The firm founded, The Atlantic Works in 1869 for the manufacture of machines especially directed to railway car manufacturing, and Band Sawing Machinery. This collection consists of illustrations of woodworking machinery and descriptions from trade catalogs that are pasted into an album. The machinery was produced in Philadelphia by The Atlantic Works (also DBA Richards, London and Kelley).

Roller skating was a popular recreational hobby between 1935 through the 1970s. Starting in the early 1940s, a handful of enterprising roller skating rink owners looking for a way to promote their rinks began giving away colorful stickers printed with the name of the rink and a skating-related graphic. This collection primarily consists of roller staking rink stickers from various states in the United States and Canada. There are a few photographs of skaters and correspondence about sticker trading.

Sally Rand (1904-1979) was a burlesque dancer, most well-known for her performances of the "bubble dance" and the "fan dance." This item is a publicity photograph showing Sally Rand and her fans.

Sally Rand (1904-1979) was a burlesque dancer, most well-known for her performances of the "bubble dance" and the "fan dance." The Century of Progress International Exposition was held along Lake Michigan and Northerly Island Park in Chicago, Illinois, from May 27, 1933, to October 31, 1934. The theme was "Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms."This small collection consists of eight copy prints made from photographs of Sally Rand's Fan Dance which she performed at the Summer of 1933 at the Chicago World's Fair.

The architectural firm of Victorine & Samuel Homsey, Inc. was founded in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1935. It was one of the first husband-and-wife architectural practices in the U.S.

The history of sexual harassment in America dates back to slavery and domestic servitude in colonial times. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement and groups like them, along with labor activists, lobbied to protect women from sexual harassment. This collection is a postcard with an illustration showing a male employee with a female employee on his lap in an office setting.