Finding Aids

Leonard W. Walton (1911-2005) was a printing industry executive with Milprint, Inc., which specialized in printing packaging materials, between 1936 and 1976. His collection of Milprint records primarily consists of printing samples including candy wrappers, cigarette boxes, potato chip and bread bags and bacon boxes.

Lepley & Joswick Photographers was a commercial photographic studio in Chicago, Illinois, between 1946 and 1952. The firm was a partnership between Alden D. Lepley (1911-2003) and Gerald "Jerry" J. Joswick (1923-1990). In 1946, Lepley and Joswick opened a photography studio at 5121 W. Devon Ave. in Chicago. Their clients were mainly industrial ones. Both partners continued to pursue side projects and give lectures separately. This small collection of photographs features a range of commercial images depicting different areas of industry in Chicago between 1940 and 1952. It includes food factory assembly line workers, canned and boxed food products, home appliances and electronics, and interior home designs.

Leroy Nelson Houck (1895-1980) was an electrician with the Pennsylvania Water & Power Company. He spent a large portion of his career working in the Load Dispatcher's Office. Pennsylvania Water & Power Company was established to store, transport, and generate water power for both commercial and manufacturing purposes. The Holtwood facility outside of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was the first power plant to have both a hydroelectric generator and a coal power generator. This small collection consists of pamphlets, photographs, and booklets related to the Pennsylvania Water & Power Co. documenting Houck's experiences as an employee there. There are manuals, booklets, and brochures about Holtwood and the Safe Harbor Dam.

Levi C. Stang (1890-1962) was an electrical engineer and general manager of several electric companies throughout the Midwest. His scrapbook chronicles his career and employment as an electrical engineer through selected letters and correspondence, newspaper and other clippings, blueprints, and photographs.

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 (jointly patented on January 4, 1875) of a new photochemical engraving process, which they called "Levy-type." The bulk of the papers consists of incoming correspondence relating to orders and shipments from 1895 to 1920, and includes letters from all parts of the United States, Europe (especially England and Germany), and more distant places such as India, Australia, and Chile.

Leroy Greenwood "L.G." Jackson (1889-1981) was a chemist for E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company between 1911 and 1954. Jackson's small set of papers are primarily from his work related to gunpowder. This collection would be of interest to those interested in powder production. There are also two items from Jackson's time in rayon research.

A 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 is a small collection of matchbook covers from hotels, museums and restaurants. Most the businesses represented are from Las Vegas, Nevada, there are a few from other places in the United States.

International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) became a giant in the field of electronic data processing by the mid-1950s after having achieved great success in the punch-card tabulating machine business in the 1930s. This is a sales film for IBM about the history of information technology.

Lippincott & Margulies, Inc., and its successor Lippincott Mercer is a major international design consultancy specializing in corporate identity, image, and marketing. The records consist of a set of the company's magazine, Design Sense.

The account books document a general store situated in Little Britain Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, likely owned in part by Jeremiah Brown (1749-1831). Brown was a successful businessman, owning a grist mill, sawmill, and slate quarries. The general store was a major center of exchange, which included a mix of cash and barter transactions, the latter including both goods and labor.

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. This item is a booklet of cyanotype photographs of locomotive coaling stations designed, erected, and equipped by the Link-Belt Engineering Company.

This collection consists of glass plate negatives and photographic copy prints which were made directly from the negatives. The images document an array of subjects, though the majority of the images are of locomotives, railroad cars, railroad stations, and other railroad infrastructure. Various landscape and cityscape photographs are also included. Where it is possible to identify the locations, the majority of images document sites in Pennsylvania, though photographs of sites in New York state and Ontario are also present.

Lois Kathryn Herr (1941-) joined Bell Laboratories in 1964, and, during her twenty-six-year career with Bell and AT&T, she was a prominent advocate for women's rights in the workplace. The collection supplements the corresponding manuscript collection and primarily comprises material Lois Herr gathered as source material for her book Women, Power, and AT&T: Winning Rights in the Work Place. It also includes audio recordings of some of Herr's public appearances and other materials concerning Herr's involvement with the National Organization for Women (NOW) and efforts to challenge discriminatory attitudes and practices toward women in the workplace.

Lois K. Herr (1941-) was a prominent advocate of equal rights for women in the workplace and a party to an important legal victory securing greater equity for women in AT&T's Bell System in the early 1970s. The collection documents her role as an important campaigner for women's rights in the business world and her interest in her predecessors in the suffragist and feminist movements of the early twentieth century.

Longwood Gardens is a series of formal display gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania that was developed by Pierre S. du Pont (1870-1954) after he purchased the site from the Peirce family in 1906. The collection includes two 1925 blueprints for two of the three bungalows that were built at Longwood.

Longwood Gardens is a series of formal display gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, that was developed by Pierre S. du Pont (1870-1954) after he purchased the site from the Peirce family in 1906. In 1921 he constructed an extensive network of conservatories which contained plantings from many locales, including species from Africa and South America. This collection consists of two homemade stereographs showing different interior views of the conservatory.

Louis Albert Cazenove (1807-1852) was a merchant at the firm Cazenove & Co. in Alexandria, Virigina. This journal is the first volume of Cazenove's European tour in 1829 and 1830; the second volume is missing. The entries are very descriptive. There is also a list of names at the end of the volume, some of which may have been business customers of Cazenove's father.

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 (jointly patented on January 4, 1875) of a new photochemical engraving process, which they called "Levy-type". This album contains personal cyanotype photographs of their homes, travels, friends and family.

This collection contains papers from Louis F. Moose from his early days as a student at the University of California, Berkeley, to his retirement from Bell Laboratories, Allentown, Pennsylvania, as an electrical engineer and department head. They date from 1928 with the bulk of the documents from 1942 to 1982 covering his work and activities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Bell Laboratories.

Throughout his career, Mr. Moose was involved with the early research and development of magnetrons/microwave tubes used in radar for military use and for Bell Systems applications.

Louis Forman (1908-2002) was a liquor broker who managed the creation and distribution of several different liquor and whiskey brands, including Michter’s. The collection, which focuses on the development and marketing of Michter’s whiskey, with a secondary emphasis on Forman’s liquor brokering business, primarily consists of advertising campaign materials and artwork, business plans and forecasts, deeds, contracts, information on brewing and distilling processes, union contracts, testimonial letters, and other correspondence.

Louis Forman (1908-2002) was a liquor broker who managed the creation and distribution of several different liquor and whiskey brands, including Michter’s. This collection documents the operations of Mitcher's Distillery in Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania as well as Forman's efforts to import Kotobukiya Kabushiki Kaisha Japanese whiskies and wines to the United States.

Louis Labadie "L.L." Driggs (1868-1942) was a weapons manufacturer, who, along with his brother, U.S. Navy Commander William Hale "W.H." Driggs (1847-1908), and fellow Navy officer Samuel Seabury (?-1902) founded Driggs-Seabury Ordnance Company in 1897. This item is a typewritten speech given by L.L. Driggs, likely to the New York Yacht Club, promoting a semi-automatic gun invented by W.H. Driggs.

Louis R. Wonderly (1931-) worked in the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company Secretary's Department for thirty years. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont Company. This small collection of Louis Wonderly's papers provides a glimpse into the secretary's work at the DuPont Company. It would be of interest to those researching the DuPont Company's upper-level management and operations from the 1920s through the 1970s.

Louis T. Klauder and Associates (LTK) is a professional rail transportation engineering consulting firm. LTK were hired to work as consulting engineers for a joint project of the United States Department of Transportation and Pennsylvania Railroad called the Northeast Corridor Demonstration Project. This collection contains aerial photographs of the Northeast Corridor railroad route from New York to Boston taken between 1951 and 1965. These images were used to aid in the project. These aerial photographs make up a bulk of the collection. There are several sets of images that show train station exteriors along several routes on the Northeast Corridor. Thirty-eight photographs show the projects test track at Pueblo Army Depot in Colorado. There are four press photographs for Inflight Motion Pictures Inc. and a few renderings of proposed trains.

Founded in 1921, the Philadelphia firm of Louis T. Klauder and Associates specializes in the design and evaluation of railroad and rail transit systems, including equipment, infrastructure and operations. Their collection consists of selected job files covering Klauder's work for the Federal Office of High Speed Ground Transportation in developing the first U.S. high-speed rail project in the Boston-Washington Northeast Corridor during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The collection also includes smaller job files on tangential rail projects and a series of files Robert B. Watson, former Northeast Corridor project coordinator for the Pennsylvania and Penn Central Railroads, brought with him when he joined Klauder in 1972.

Louise du Pont Crowninshield (1877-1958) was an early leader in the field of historic preservation and a collector of antiques and hooked rugs. This collection includes two letters addressed to Nell (McCall) Pringle (1879-1937), of Charleston, South Carolina.

Louise du Pont Crowninshield (1877-1958) was an early leader in the field of historic preservation and a collector of antiques and hooked rugs. The collection includes her papers as well as those of her husband Francis Boardman Crowninshield, her mother, and other family members.

Louise Evelina du Pont (1877-1958) was an heiress and preservationist, who was the great granddaughter of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771–1834), the founder of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. She was the last du Pont to live on the Eleutherian Mills estate. This collection consists of photographic and graphic materials primarily of Crowninshield's extended du Pont family and friends. The collection has been organized into four series: Family portraits, Travel photographs, Residences, and Mary Pauline Foster du Pont sketches and collection of travel souveniers.

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition or the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904 as it was popularly called, was put on to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. Three postcards show buildings from the exposition.

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition or the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904 as it was popularly called, was put on to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. Seven stereoviews show scenes from the fair.

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition or the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904 as it was popularly called, was put on to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. Exhibitions covered achievements in the fine arts, science, technology, manufacturing, agriculture, government, and education. This souvenir viewbook shows buildings at the fair and is accordion folded and in color.

Gertrude Ruhnka (1891-1981) was a research librarian at the Huntington Library in California. The collection contains her unpublished manuscript, "Love for life: a self-portrait of the first three generations of du Ponts in America, 1791-1834," and two letters from Ruhnka to J.B. Lippincott Company and Dr. Walter J. Heacock of the Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation.

Dr. Lucius F. Ellsworth (1941-) was a Hagley graduate fellow and was employed by Hagley as a research assistant in the history of technology from 1963 to 1967. The papers in this collection consist of a combination of research notes and original documents collected by Dr. Ellsworth during his research on the American tanning and leather industries.

The Lukens Steel Company was a medium-sized, non-integrated steel company and one of the top three producers of steel plates in the United States. Lukens operated continuously at its Coatesville, Pennsylvania, site since 1810 and was one of the few successful survivors of the many nineteenth-century iron works that once dotted southeastern Pennsylvania. This collection of Lukens Steel Company records consists of corporate records, mostly from the Secretary's Office. The records are comprised of seven series: Shareholders' meeting agendas; Stockholder lists; Proxies for annual meetings; Board and committee meeting agendas; Financial statements; Secretary's correspondence; and Counsel's correspondence.

The Lukens Steel Company was a medium-sized, non-integrated steel company and one of the top three producers of steel plates in the United States. Lukens operated continuously at its Coatesville, Pennsylvania, site from 1810, and was one of the few successful survivors of the many nineteenth-century ironworks that once dotted southeastern Pennsylvania. This collection consists of three volumes of logbooks from the Lukens Steel Navy Armor building in Coatesville, Pennsylvania.

Lukens Steel Company was a medium-sized producer of specialty steel products and one of the top three U.S. producers of steel plate. The Lukens Steel Company records documents all aspects of the business from the early nineteenth century through the 1970s.

Lukenweld, Inc. was the first U.S. commercial shop to cut and fabricate shapes from steel plate by arc welding. The records are files of Robert C. Sahlin (1896-1967), a member of Lukenweld's sales staff. Sahlin's files record his dealings with Lukenweld's customers and his other activities as a salesman. Most Lukenweld orders were custom work, fabricating individual machine parts, so there was frequent interplay between sales and engineering staff.

Lunt Silversmiths designed and manufactured quality sterling holloware, flatware, silverware, and giftware for 107 years. Filing for bankruptcy in 2009, Lunt ceased manufacturing and sold their brand to Read & Barton the following year. Included are administrative records, designs, patterns, photographs, and three-dimensional objects that include moulds, silhouettes, and unstruck blanks. The numerous drawings and sketches that comprise this collection document the talent of skilled craftsmen who worked for the company throughout the twentieth century.

Lydia R. Bailey (1779-1869) owned and operated on of the busiest printing establishments in nineteenth century Philadelphia. The collection represents an account with John Steele (1758-1827), collector of the Port of Philadelphia, for printing of certificates and includes a list of ships for which certificates were purchased.

This is a collection of photographs and drawings of interiors designed by the firm of Lyman W. Cleveland, Interior Architecture & Design, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Lynch and Stoughton was a New York mercantile firm that traded extensively with Spain, Portugal, Holland, the West Indies, Florida, Ireland, and China, in the coasting trade between Pennsylvania and New England, and with the interior of New York State. The ledger documents the firm's mercantile business between 1783 and 1788. The ledger appears to have later been passed down through several generations of the Stow family of New York and Michigan, who used it as a scrapbook for scrap paper and practicing penmanship.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein (1766-1817), known as Madame de Staël, was a writer, philosopher, and politically engaged woman who survived the French Revolution and was exiled multiple times by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). The letter from "Necker de Stael Holstein" to Le Roy, Bayard & Co., New York, concerning accounts with the firm and with W. Saladin.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein (1766-1817), known as Madame de Staël, was a writer, philosopher, and politically engaged woman who survived the French Revolution and was exiled multiple times by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). Negative photostat of letter from Madame de Staël to Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817).

Major Reybold was an iron excursion steamer, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This collection contains a photographic copy print of a painting of the steamship.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. The company was established in 1802 by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) and his son Éleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834) the company began with the production of gunpowder. This item is the film Making Blasting Caps which documents the process of making blasting caps.

The Manheim, Petersburg and Lancaster Turnpike or Plank Road Company constructed a plank road between the named towns in 1851 to 1852, during the plank road craze. The records consist of eight pocket volumes and some loose papers kept by the company treasurer, such as a subscription book, toll gatherers' receipt book, and payment book.

The Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway, which takes passengers to the summit of Pikes Peak mountain in Colorado, is the highest rack railway in the world and the highest railway in North America. This collection consists of a viewbook consisting of eight pages with photographs of the railway.

The Manufacturers' Club of Philadelphia was founded on May 19th, 1887 by members of the Philadelphia Manufacturers Association, a group of leading Philadelphia industrialists that predominantly consisted of textile executives. The guest book for the Manufacturers' Club of Philadelphia contains the names and signatures of both guests and the members that accompanied or introduced them, along with the city from which they were visiting.

This collection consists of photographs and maps depicting the property of the Brandywine Works of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. The maps and blueprints show how the property of the Brandywine Works was divided among du Pont family members for estates after the works closed. A small series of large-format photographs depict various scenes and events from the Brandywine Works and the city of Wilmington in general.

Thomas Lamb (1896-1988) was an industrial designer most noted for his design of physiologically efficient handles. Marc Harrison (1936-1998) was an industrial designer and pioneer of Universal Design. Harrison taught at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he became instrumental in establishing the Division of Architecture and Design. In the early 1960s, while wandering through a restaurant supply company, Harrison came across a set of knives designed by Thomas Lamb. Harrison was so impressed by the knives' designs that he became determined to meet Lamb. Harrison arranged an introduction through a mutual friend. Harrison and Lamb became lifelong friends and colleagues. This collection consists of Marc Harrison's compilation of photographs, articles, drawings, and research by and about Thomas Lamb that document Lamb's industrial design career. Harrison kept these papers at the Industrial Design Department at RISD and potentially used them in his teaching.