Finding Aids

The Lea family were among the largest flour mill operators at the Brandywine Falls, north of Wilmington, Delaware, since the 1770s, when Thomas Lea (1757–1823) joined in partnership with Joseph Tatnall (1740–1813). The album contains considerable genealogical information on the Lea family, as well as thirty-eight silhouette portraits of members of the Lea and related families. These include family names such as Tatnall, Baily, Bellah, Warner, Pusey, and Rodman.

This collection consists of five publicity photographs from the motion picture Stars and Stripes Forever. It was produced by 20th Century Fox and released in 1952. It tells the story of John Philip Sousa, portrayed by Clifton Webb.

Whittier Cleaning & Dye Works was a small, dry cleaning business in Whittier, California. Mrs. Willhoit operated the business and eventually put her name in the title. This album contains images of the exteriors of the store, the interiors of the store showing Mrs. Whitter working, Whittier exiting a company car with clothing on hangers, a worker at the press, and Mrs. Whittier with an armed serviceman. There are several snapshots of Mrs. Whittier with a group of young women.

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, eventually becoming co-owner. He was an accomplished musician who composed many scores, however, he destroyed most as he became deaf. Only six survive. This compact disc contains six sound recordings of scores composed by Alfred I. du Pont. Performed by the New Tankopanicum Orchestra, conducted by Brian Cox, Published in Greenville, DE : Tank CD p1993. Includes program notes (1 folded sheet [6] p. : ill.) inserted in container.

Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS), now known as Landsat 1, was the first satellite launched as part of the Landsat program to continuously record observations of Earth from space. ERTS was launched on July 23, 1972. This small collection consists of eleven transparencies showing satellite images of locations in the southwestern United States and Rocky Mountains taken by NASA's Earth Resources Technology Satellite on February 2, 1975.

National Ammonia Company of Pennsylvania was a manufacturer of refrigerators which utilized the Claude process of sytheic ammonia for the coolant. The company was founded by Dr. Herman F. Dannenbaum (1857-1932) in Philadelphia in 1902. The collection consists of interior and exterior photographs of the National Ammonia Company of Pennsylvania's factory in Philadelphia.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is an industrial trade association and advocacy group. NAM was organized in January of 1895 when approximately 600 manufacturers met during the 1890s depression in Cincinnati, Ohio, to formulate a program for economic recovery. Since its inception, it has pursued the objectives of American business, such as the building of the Panama Canal and opposition to both Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. This calendar was created to celebrate the National Association of Manufacturers' 100th year. Each month features archival and contemporary photographs from a company belonging to the organization.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is “the largest manufacturing association in the United States, representing small and large manufacturers in every industrial sector and in all fifty states,” and “is the powerful voice of the manufacturing community and the leading advocate for a policy agenda that helps manufacturers compete in the global economy and create jobs across the United States.” This collection contains photographs, negatives, slides, digital images, sound recordings, objects, videos, and films that document the history of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) from the mid-twentieth century through the early twenty-first century. The materials provide a visual and audible documentation of the organization’s programs and activities.

The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) is an advocacy organization that represents automobile dealers to automobile manufacturers and the United States government. This collection highlights the activities of NADA. The collection is arranged into two series based on format; Audiovisual and Publications. The material within the series are arranged chronologically. The audiovisual materials focus primarily on coverage of events, news segments, automobile manufacturer footage and other programs pertaining to NADA, while the publications focus on industry news, products, regulations, and legislation.

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. This item is an album forty-five photographs taken during the exposition. The photographs are primarily of various companies individual displays. Companies represented are RCA, Westinghouse Electric, Singer Sewing Machine, General Electric, Hoover, Leonard, among others.

The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) is a business membership organization that advocates for international and public policy that support an open world trading system. This collection consists of archived captures of the official website of the National Foreign Trade Council (URL: http://www.nftc.org/). The website has information about the NFTC by-laws, the board of directors, staff, and membership. There are webpages that feature publications, recent events and activities, information about the NFTC stance on various issues such as trade policy, tax policy, international human resources, visa policy, sanctions and export controls, and innovation.

The National Industrial Conference Board (NICB), later named The Conference Board, is a non-profit membership organization specializing in economic research. This collection contains photographic prints, primarily portraits, of early NICB members.

Newell Convers Wyeth (1882-1945), known as N.C. Wyeth was one of America's foremost illustrators and painters. This poster shows a figure in the center holding up a torch. A pageant of historically costumed figures surrounds her with a log cabin on the left and a modern city on the right.

The New Castle County Mutual Insurance Company was incorporated on February 6, 1849, as a mutual fire insurance company in Wilmington, Delaware. It was later renamed the New Castle Mutual Insurance Company. This small collection consists of seven portrait photographs of presidents and vice presidents of the New Castle County Mutual Insurance Company dating from around 1849 to 1912.

E. C. Kellogg and Co. was a lithography firm in Hartford, Connecticut between 1851 and 1854. The item is a hand-colored lightograph of the New York Crystal Palace for the New York Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations.

These photographs show an exhibit sponsored by the New York State Home Bureau Managers' Association that went on display at the New York State Fair in Syracuse from August 30th to September 6th in 1952. The exhibit was intended for use by professionals in the field of home demonstration to showcase principles of home economics and domestic skills to State Fair attendees.

The exhibit was developed under the supervision of Professor Mary Koll Heiner (1890-1956), of the College of Home Economics at Cornell University, and fabricated using Crosley and Bendix brand appliances and cabinets. At the time these photographs were taken, these two brands were produced by the Crosley Division of the AVCO Manufacturing Corporation of Coldwater, Ohio.

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."

The New York World’s Fair of 1939 was held in Flushing Meadows on Long Island between April 30, 1930 and October 31, 1939. This small collection consists of three official postcards of the 1939 New York World's Fair.

J.A. (Joshua Appleby) Williams (1817-1892) was a photographer working in Newport, Rhode Island from 1847 to 1885. The item is a panoramic photograph most likely of Newport, Rhode Island, view may cover almost a complete 360 degree circuit.

The Niagara Falls Power Company began in 1890, the power plant harnessed waterpower to deliver electricity to Buffalo, New York. The company's two power stations were closed after more than sixty years of service in 1961. This collection's photographs document the erection of wooden poles for power transmission lines between Niagara Falls and Buffalo. There are also interiors and exteriors of power hosues and transformer buildings.

RCA Victor was an American electronics company. Nicholas F. Pensiero (1918-2003) worked for RCA's Marketing Division. This collection contains sixteen photographs in which Gladys McHugh is the model posed using RCA Victor appliances. The remainder of the photos are candids, some taken inside or near RCA offices.

The Philadelphia, Easton and Water-Gap Railroad Company was incorporated in Pennsylvania on April 6, 1852, and renamed the North Pennsylvania Railroad Company on October 3, 1853. The collection consists of nineteenth and twentieth century portraits of officers and presidents.

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.

N.W. Ayer & Son, Inc. lays claim to being the first and oldest advertising agency in the United States. Established in Philadelphia by Francis Ayer (1848-1923) in 1869. The Kellett Aircraft Corporation was a manufacturer of airplanes, specifically autogiros, helicopters, and aircraft for the U.S. military. This item is a thin booklet style scrapbook containing newspaper articles about a publicity stunt where a golfer flew a Kellet autogiro to each hole on the golf course at Locust Grove Country Club in Westfield, New Jersey. The demonstration was arranged by N.W. Ayer & Son to promote the Kellet autogiros. All of the articles include a photograph image.

In the spring of 1934 the Senate's Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry chaired by Senator Gerald P. Nye (1892-1971) began to examine the role that the munitions manufacturers had played during the First World War. This collection consists of photographs of P. S. du Pont, Irénée du Pont, Lammot du Pont, and A. Felix du Pont testifying before the Nye Committee in September of 1934.

Old Swedes Church (now known as Holy Trinity Church) was dedicated on July 4, 1699 in Wilmington, Delaware, built for the Swedish colony that settled there. One exterior view of Old Swedes Church in Wilmington, Delaware, showing the portico, steeple, and grave yard.

The collection comprises approximately 200 oral history interviews with 152 individuals conducted by museum staff between 1954 and 1990. The majority of the individuals interviewed had either worked at the DuPont Company powder yards on Brandywine Creek during the yards’ final decades of operation or had lived in the surrounding communities, although the collection also includes interviews with those who worked in other local industries. The interviews are largely biographical in nature covering a period from about 1900 to 1960 and address a wide range of subjects relating to daily life and work in the Brandywine Valley.

William "André" Harvey (1941-) is an American sculptor and artist primarily known for finely detailed realistic bronze casting, in particular, animals. He also works in stone, casts sculptural jewelry in gold, watercolors, photography, and creates collages. He is a Fellow of the National Sculpture Society. His wife and business partner, Roberta Rush "Bobbie" Harvey (1941-), manages the Harveys’ sculpture gallery and art business, maintaining client lists and provenance records, managing sales and exhibition loans, and promoting André’s work. In this interview, André and Bobbie Harvey discuss the training, experiences, and travels that led them to the art world, the sculpture business they built together beginning in the 1970s, and the process of bringing a piece of art into the world, from conception to execution to exhibition to sale. They also reflect on the cultural and historical conditions that influenced their decision to pursue careers in art, and the personal and mutual satisfactions of following artistic passion and cultivating community connections.

Frederick Orthlieb (1945?-) is a mechanical engineer, professor, and tradesperson who has rehabilitated, upgraded, and modernized historical telescopes. While the telescopes are obsolete for current research work, after rehabilitation they are capable of productive and effective use for familiarization, secondary and higher education, and institutional and public outreach. In this interview, Orthlieb talks about his career and work refurbishing telescopes.

James Cortada (1946-) is a management consultant and business historian. In this interview, Cortada discusses the collection of computing history books that he donated to Hagley Library.

Kenneth M. White (1923-2020) was an industrial designer who formed his own design firm in 1947 called Ken White Associates, Inc., which developed plans and designs for thousands of independent and academic bookstores throughout the United States, as well as many other types of retail businesses. This collection is a two-part interview in which Ken White discusses the early parts of his life and career as an industrial designer.

Marshall B. Johnson (1938-) is an industrial designer who worked for some of the most well-known small appliance companies and designed many popular consumer products, as well as often doing their graphic and packaging design. This is an interview with Marshall Johnson in which he talks about his life and career as an industrial designer.

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.

Wallace Hume Carothers (1896-1937) was chemist and inventor of Neoprene artificial rubber and Nylon synthetic fiber. He worked as a chemist in E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company's Fundamental Research Program from 1928 until his death in 1937. This collection contains five interviews conducted in July and August of 1978 with Wallace Carothers’s friends and colleagues. The interviewees primarily share stories and focus on their feelings surrounding Carothers’s personality, work, and suicide.

This oral history project was initiated to provide supplementary material for Hagley’s 2015 exhibit, Driving Desire, that feature items from the Z. Taylor Vinson Transportation Collection. The three interviewees are; 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.

The Textile Fibers Department of the DuPont Company was established in 1936 as the Rayon Department, which specialized in researching and developing synthetic fibers for fabrics such as Nylon, Orlon, Dacron, and Lycra. The collection consists of oral history interviews conducted by Joseph Plasky, with former employees of DuPont's Textile Fibers department.

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.

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.

The Otis Elevator Company manufactures, installs and maintains elevators, escalators and moving walkways. Elisha Otis (1811-1861) founded the company in 1853 in New York. This collection consists of thirteen tear sheets of advertisements with sketched illustrations for Otis Elevator Company elevators (8) and escalators (5). The escalators are shown in five different styles for department stores installations.

The Otis Elevator Company manufactures, installs and maintains elevators, escalators and moving walkways. In 1904, the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, a precursor of today’s London Underground, purchased 170 electric elevators from the company, to be installed between 1905 and 1907. The album contains images of elevators and elevator equipment being installed at subway stations in London. The photographs are labeled by station and date. Most of the images show the equipment used to raise, lower and brake the elevator, often already installed at the top of the elevator shaft or in a machine room.

The DuPont Company began with the manufacture of gunpowder, and particularly from about 1890 to 1930, commissioned many illustrations in oil and watercolor for advertising purposes. This collection consists of a set of eighteen color prints entitled "Our American Game Birds" from paintings by Lynn Bogue Hunt, published by E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Inc. - Sporting Powder Division. Each print has a written description on its reverse, by Edward Howe Forbush. As the set's title suggests, various game birds are the subjects of each print.

Owl Drug Company was a chain of apothecary retail stores that sold drugs and patent medicines at a reduced cost. The company also sold candy, soda, Kodak film, stationery, cosmetics, perfumes, and other toiletries. The first store opened in June 1892 at 1128 Market Street, San Francisco, California, advertised as the "Drug Palace of the Pacific Coast." The album consists of images of displays of items sold in the drug store, specifically the 5th and Broadway location in Los Angeles, which opened for business on January 2, 1904. The 5th and Broadway location was the fifth store of the company. The photographs are countertop and shop window merchandise displays. A few images consist of print advertisements and operational charts.

Pamela Cunningham Copeland (1906-2001) and Lammot du Pont Copeland (1905-1983) were active in the land conservation movement, cultural institutions (including both the Hagley and Winterthur Museums), and local civic and philanthropic work. The collection contains photographs of Pamela and Lammot du Pont Copeland and family members. Many of the pictures document the couple's various activities and philanthropic endeavors.

The Pan-American Exposition was a World's Fair held in Buffalo, New York, from May 1 to November 2, 1901. This item is a souvenir paper fan showing a bird's eye view of the Fair on the front, and the back shows a map of the grounds.

The item is a small novelty souvenir viewbook from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. It opens up to display fifteen attached, folded halftone photographic views of the San Francisco area. The exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco for nine months in 1915. The official reason for it was to commemorate the completion of the Panama Canal. It also furnished a platform to showcase a revitalized San Francisco that had been devastated by the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906.

Parry Norling (1939-) was a career research chemist and manager with E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. This small collection consists of DuPont Company-related videotapes and slides accumulated by Parry Norling while in his role as Planning Director at DuPont's Central Research and Development during the 1990s.

Patent medicines, also known as proprietary medicines, are non-prescription medicinal remedies that are trademarked and whose ingredients have been granted protection for exclusivity. The term "patent medicine" has become particularly associated with drug compounds manufactured during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In actuality, the patent medicine recipes were not officially patented. Patent medicine promoters pioneered many advertising and sales techniques; this small collection primarily features trade cards and almanacs.

The Pennsylvania New York Central Transportation Company was the creation of a 1968 merger of the Pennsylvania and New York Central railroads. In 1970, the "Penn Central" Transportation Company filed for bankruptcy and auctioned off Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central Railroad memorabilia, pictures, and other materials. This collection consists of a poster for the auction of Penn Central railroad memorabilia. The poster includes images of lanterns and a locomotive, both in black, on brown paper with text announcing dates for auction and preview.

The Pennsylvania Indemnity Corporation was an automobile insurance company located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This item is a road atlas containing 32 pages of maps of the northeastern United States. Published by Rand McNally and Company.