Finding Aids

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.

Wallace Hume Carothers (1896-1937) was a 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. The records include the handwritten transcripts of a series of interviews with persons who knew and worked with Carothers, conducted in 1978 and 1979. The interviews were conducted by Adeline Bassett Cook Strange (1917-2004), a teacher, researcher, and volunteer who spent her life dedicated to various charitable projects around Wilmington, Delaware.

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 firm of Orrick, Grubbs & Parker, iron merchants, was formed in Philadelphia around 1839, succeeding the firm of Samuel D. Orrick & Co. The records consist of 26 letters addressed to Orrick & Fox, Samuel D. Orrick & Co., Orrick, Grubbs & Parker and E. B. & C. B. Grubb concerning shipments of iron from the Grubb furnaces and its resale to manufacturers along the east coast.

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.

The Oxford Furnace in Warren County, New Jersey, was one of the oldest blast-furnaces in the state. The records consist of two drafts in ozalid copy of a typescript collection of letters and articles on the history of Oxford Furnace.

Peter Arnold Karthaus (1765-1840) established a mercantile business in Baltimore trading with Germany, Holland, France, and the Caribbean. The receipt book was kept by a member of P.A. Karthaus & Company at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and mostly deals with payments to individuals, pilots, and other laborers, engaged in Karthaus's arking business, typically wages, meals, boarding costs, and transportation back upstream.

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 collection is a letter from Katherine M. (Hunting) Fuller (1869-1958) to her daughter, Muriel H. Fuller (1892-1976), about the exposition and Niagara Falls.

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.

Paris T. Carlisle (circa 1802-1871) owned a general store in Frederica, Delaware during the early to mid-1800s. This small collection includes Paris T. Calisle's day book for his general store in Frederica, Delaware, as well as a Stock Book ledger recording wages and the state of stocks of brass, copper, and iron wire in the mid 1800s.

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.

Parry Norling (1939-) was a career research chemist and manager with E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. Records consists of company documents and outside publications collected by Norling during his time at DuPont.

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.

Paul Arthur, Jr., (1915-2000) spent most of his career as an industrial research chemist in the Central Research Department of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, where his most notable achievement was his work on Crolyn, a type of magnetic tape which was used primarily in the instrumentation, video, and computer industries. This small collection, assembled by Arthur's sister, Dorothy Arthur, consists of press releases, photographs, and published clippings related to Arthur's career with the DuPont Company.

Paul J. Ganahl (1916-2002) was an electrical engineer who served in the United States Air Force. This item is a manuscript diary kept by Ganahal between January 2, 1953, and December 31, 1953, while working as an electrical engineer performing aerial photography tests for the United States Air Force in California and New Mexico. The daily entries are bullet lists of film rolls develped, problems found, people met with or spoken to, flight test details, and places traveled. The diary provides technical information about the develpment of reconnaissance photography, engineering challenges, and project team communication.

Paul L. Bechly worked in various positions for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company between 1980 and 1993, including research and development, engineering, distribution, sales, and product management. Bechly's papers document his efforts at developing and implementing a successful perfluorocarbon (PFC) policy for the DuPont Company in the early 1990s. The papers also reflect DuPont’s companywide initiative to be at the forefront of environmental policy with regard to the global reduction of PFC emissions.

Paul W. Morgan (1911-1992) was a research chemist who spent his thirty-five-year career working in the DuPont Company's Pioneering Research Laboratory, part of the Textile Fibers Department (formerly the Rayon Department). His contributions include interfacial polycondensation reactions, a previously unexplored field of polymer chemistry. Morgan’s polymer condensation research ultimately yielded several commercially successful products. Among these were Nomex®, a high-temperature-resistant, thermally stable aramid fiber; Fiber B, a new tire reinforcing fiber that was twice as strong as ordinary synthetic tire yarns; and PRD-49, a high-modulus organic fiber marketed as Kevlar® aramid fiber. In addition to documenting Morgan’s career with DuPont, this collection also contains materials relating to the history of hand tools and tool manufacturers, amassed by Morgan following his retirement.

Paulina du Pont (1827-1914) was a descendant of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) who founded the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company with his son Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834) in 1802. The E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. Paulina du Pont was the daughter of Alfred Victor du Pont (1798-1856) and Margaretta Lammot du Pont (1807-1898). Her six-page sketchbook contains pencil sketches, probably produced in drawing class, depicts European rural scenes of cottages and country churches.

The five generation of the Peirce family owned farmland in Kennet Square, Pennsylvania. Over time the family added recreational facilities and opened the land to the public as "Peirce's Park" now Longwood Gardens. This small collection consists of photocopies of correspondence related the genealogy of the Peirce family.

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.

A complete set of employee timetables for each region and division of the Penn Central Railroad.

Several generations of the Penn family were proprietors of the British colony of Pennsylvania. It was given to William Penn (1644-1718) in 1681 by Charles II of England in repayment of a debt owed to his father, Sir Admiral William Penn (1621-1670). Under Penn's directive, Pennsylvania was settled by Quakers escaping religious torment in England and other European nations. Three generations of Penn descendants held proprietorship of the colony until the American Revolution, when the family was stripped of all but its privately held shares of land. "Book A" is a record of deeds granted between April 24, 1784, and March 22, 1793, by members of the Penn family to various purchasers of those proprietary lands retained by the family after the American Revolution, located between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Penn Virginia Corporation was an oil and gas company, incorporated as the Virginia Coal & Iron Company on January 6, 1882. It was one of many firms established by a group of interrelated entrepreneurs headed by John Leisenring (1819-1884), a Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, civil and mining engineer. The name changed to Penn Virigina Corporation in 1967. The records of Penn Virginia Corporation cover the development and operations of the Virginia Coal & Iron Company, a large southern Appalachian land company, with some information on its immediate neighbors and local support facilities.

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.

The Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. is an energy utility and transmission distributor based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. This small collection consists of a course book from a Pennsylvania Power & Light Company lighting workshop held in the fall of 1957.

The Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. is an energy utility and transmission distributer based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Arising from a business merger, the company was founded on June 4, 1920, and soon after began providing energy to eastern and central Pennsylvania. Renamed PP&L Corporation circa 1995, the company continues to operate as an energy provider within northeastern Pennsylvania. The collection consists primarily of photographs that depict sites of various PP&L subsidiaries and those directly operated by the company. It is a resource that can be used for insight into PP&L's early operations and eastern and central Pennsylvania industrial development. Images within this collection range from 1920 to 1973. Researchers interested in electric power transmission and its development within the state of Pennsylvania would find this collection useful.

Pennsylvania Power & Light traces its origins to the various water and gas light companies that began operating in the eastern part of the state during the mid-nineteenth century. The records of the Pennsylvania Power & Light Company predecessor and subsidiary companies document the history of the gas and electric utility industry in eastern Pennsylvania in the years between 1853 and 1957. The collection includes both the administrative and operating records of more than 1100 companies that merged to form the PP&L system.

Pennsylvania Power & Light Company formed in 1920 through the consolidation of eight electric utilities companies serving central and eastern Pennsylvania. The collection primarily includes corporate papers documenting the company’s acquisition of various competing electric companies in the early-to-mid twentieth century by way of franchise building, market research and corporate communications, hydroelectric development through studies and surveys on Pennsylvania’s waterways, and material documenting the company’s various power plants in central eastern Pennsylvania. Financial and accounting records of the Pennsylvania Water & Power Company, which PP&L acquired in 1955, are also included.

From 1925 to 1958, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company issued a series of advertising calendars, each measuring over two feet square. Of the thirty-three calendars published, twenty-eight were illustrated by Grif Teller (1899-1993). This small collection consists of six posters featuring the paintings from the 1949, 1950, 1951, 1953, 1954, and 1955 Pennsylvania Railroad advertising calendars. The title of the painting and the words "Pennsylvania Railroad" appear in the border beneath each image.

The Pennsylvania Railroad Company was the largest railroad in the United States in terms of corporate assets and traffic from the last quarter of the nineteenth century until the decline of the northeast's and midwest's dominance of manufacturing. These records provide nearly comprehensive coverage of corporate matters for the entire time span and reasonably complete coverage of the functional departments from 1920 to 1950, with less coverage from 1893 to 1920 and from 1950 to 1968.

The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) was chartered in 1846 to complete an all-railroad network across the state. Between 1855 and 1874, the PRR underwent rapid expansion and emerged as one of the two largest railroad systems in the region east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio. In 1910, the PRR entered Manhattan through tunnels under the Hudson and East Rivers. This collection consists of flyers and a brochure for Pennsylvania Railroad special fares or trains.

The Pennsylvania Railroad Company was the largest railroad in the United States in terms of corporate assets and traffic in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. This small collection of photographs covers the planning, surveying, and building of the Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels under the Hudson River, connecting New Jersey and New York in the early twentieth century.

The Pennsylvania Railroad Company was the largest railroad in the United States in terms of corporate assets and traffic from the last quarter of the nineteenth century until the decline of the northeast's and midwest's dominance of manufacturing. This collection of photographs primarily depict the PRR itself, but numerous views of similar facilities and equipment on other railroads, of nearby buildings and properties, or of standardized equipment and accessories that were collected for reference are included. Almost all of the photographs are the work of commercial photographers hired on short term contract, but some are prints from the company's own negatives. The collection have been arranged by subject and organized into three series: Equipment, trains, and personnel; Structures and right of way; and Company magazine photographs.

The Pennsylvania Railroad Company was the largest railroad in the United States in terms of corporate assets and traffic from the last quarter of the nineteenth century until the decline of the northeast's and midwest's dominance of manufacturing. This is a collection of thirty-six blank, preprinted forms dating between 1960 and 1967, mostly related to the inspection and movement of freight cars.

The Pennsylvania Railroad Company was the largest railroad in the United States in terms of corporate assets and traffic from the last quarter of the nineteenth century until the decline of the northeast's and midwest's dominance of manufacturing. This collection consists of materials related to the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge and trestle near Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. There is a copy of an erection diagram from 1896 and a copy of the application for the bridge to be a historic site to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.