Finding Aids

Engineer's notebook kept by future DuPont Company vice president Willis F. Harrington (1882-1960) while an entry-level engineer at the Barksdale Works in Wisconsin.

Wilmington is the largest city in Delaware located on the Christiana and Brandywine Rivers. Postcard views of miscellaneous sights in and around Wilmington, Delaware.

Wilmington is the largest city in Delaware located on the Christiana and Brandywine Rivers. This collection consists of three reproduction photographs of diverse subjects: an A5A steam locomotive #1167 of Reading Railroad crossing the road at Greenville, Delaware; a unoccupied trolley car in Wilmington, Delaware, originally built by the Peoples Railway Company in 1904; a postcard illustration of the Delaware Trust Building, Wilmington, Delaware.

Wilmington is Delaware’s largest city and can be found where the Christina River and the Brandywine Creek meet near the Delaware River. This panoramic color photograph shows office buildings in the city center.

Wilmington is the largest city in Delaware located on the Christiana and Brandywine Rivers. These are sixteen small, gummed, and perforated stamps showing sepia photographic views of Wilmington, Delaware.

Wilmington is Delaware’s largest city and can be found where the Christina River and the Brandywine Creek meet near the Delaware River. The city prospered throughout the Industrial Revolution, but the period of rapid economic growth came with the Civil War. By 1920, the population had reached over 110,000 residents. Wilmington experienced significant population loss after World War II as the suburban areas grew and I-95 dissected some of the city’s more stable neighborhoods. These items are postcards are of miscellaneous views of Wilmington, Delaware sites.

Wilmington is the largest city in Delaware located on the Christiana and Brandywine Rivers. The collection consists of eight postcards featuring scenes in and around Wilmington, Delaware. The postcards were published by Julian B. Robinson, a Wilmington printer.

Based in Wilmington, Delaware, the Wilmington Public Library has been serving the public since it was established in 1754. This collection consists of eighty eight films, dating from 1914 to 1984, donated by the Wilmington Public Library. These films were de-accessioned from the library’s non-circulating collection. This collection is organized into nine series based on the film’s subject or type of production: American History, Archaeological, Business, Commercial films/television, Educational, Environmental, Experimental, Political Science and Urban/Rural Studies.

The Wilmington Savings Fund Society was established in 1831 as a "safe depository for the earnings of working people" which also promoted the opportunity for homebuilding and lending money for home mortgages. Their records consist primarily of minutes and account books.

The Wilmington Trapshooting Association (WTA) was organized in 1910 and continues to be active today. This collection consists of photographs of members of the Wilmington Trapshooting Association at various events from the early 1900s through the 1980s.

The Wilmington Trapshooting Association was organized in November 1916 with William Highfield (1884-1943) as President, C. Thorpe Martin (1880-1955) as Vice President, E.R. Galvin (dates unknown) as Secretary. The records include minutes, financial ledgers, handbooks, rulebooks, and membership lists.

The Wilmington Trust Company is a financial institution that was started as a banking, trust, and safe deposit company for the du Pont family and other Delaware wealthy families. It is now a subsidiary of M & T Bank. The records contain some information on the workings of the Trust Department, but are more useful for the information they contain on the individual companies in which the department invested. It includes account reviews, responsibility reviews, and security reviews, but is largely investment analysis files, by company.

The Wilson family were owners of the Wilson Line, a steamboat company that was popular for traveling between Philadelphia, Pennslyvania, Wilmington, Delaware and Riverview Beach, New Jersey. This collection contains portraits of groups and individuals, as well as snapshot of family members and their estate and documents related to Frances W. Richardson's volunteer work for hospitals and the American Red Cross.

Andrew Gray Wilson (1844-1905) was well-known among shipbuilders as a preeminent marine engineer and naval architect. This small collection consists primarily of individual and group portraits and snapshots of the Wilson family and the family of one of the daughters, Natalie Wilson du Pont. The collection is organized into three series; family photographs; home interiors and exteriors; and family cars and dogs photographs.

The Wilson Lines was a steamboat company that was popular for traveling between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Wilmington, Delaware and Riverview Beach, New Jersey. This small collection of copy photographs contains mostly exterior views of several Wilson Lines steamboats between 1890 and 1955.

Wm. Rogers & Son was a trademark used by the International Silver Company in silverplate. Various independent New England silversmiths came together and formed the International Silver Company in 1898. These items are point-of-sale advertising display cards for Wm. Rogers & Son silverplate.

The Wolf Envelope Company was an envelope, stationery, and novelties manufacturer in Cleveland, Ohio, during the twentieth century. Founded in 1899 by Louis Littman (1855-1937), the company was greatly expanded by Harry Fleishman Affelder (1881-1963), who joined in 1913 and eventually became President. This collection consists of one silent 16mm film, commissioned by Affelder, primarily documenting the daily operations at the Wolf Envelope Company's facilities in 1935. Also included are a few short clips showing the manufacturing processes employed by other envelope industry companies, including the Berkowitz Envelope Company in Kansas City, Missouri, a paper mill in Berlin, New Hampshire, and John Dickison & Company in Washington, Tyne and Wear, England.

The collection consists of four World War II posters related to women in the workforce. Women on the Home Front worked in war industries and volunteered for war-related organizations, excelling at historically male-dominated trades such as welding, riveting, and engine repair. Their contribution was essential for the production and supply of wartime goods.

Angling is a method of fishing by means of using an angle or fish hook. The hook itself can be dressed with lures or bait to attract the fish. F. Earl Christy (1883-1961) was an illustrator whose early works glorified the society college girl. After the college girl craze ran its course, he painted more mature men and women, movie stars, and political figures in his romantically idealized style. These three items show women with fishing poles. One of the postcard illustration's artwork is by F. Earl Christy.

The Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR) National Committee investigated the increase in drunkenness and effect of Prohibition, operated a publicity campaign, created a speakers' bureau, spoke at legislative hearings, and enrolled members. This collection of the Pennsylvania division records consists of the Executive Committee minutes, administrative files, financial records, and membership records.

The Wood family was founders of one of Philadelphia's great Quaker mercantile and manufacturing families, and within a couple of generations founded the Wawa Dairy Farms. The papers were primarily collected by Julianna Randolph (1810-1885), wife of Richard D. Wood (1799-1869), and include correspondence from Julianna Randolph, her parents Edward (1784-1834) and Mary Taylor Randolph (1790-1868), and her husband Richard Wood. The letters are almost entirely limited to correspondence within the Wood-Randolph kinship group.

The Woodlawn Trustees Inc., a major landowner in suburban Wilmington, Delaware, began developing Woodbrook and Sharpley neighborhoods in the mid-1950s. This collection illustrates the process of creating suburban residential subdivision in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

The Woodlawn Trustees, Incorporated, is a non-profit real estate development firm incorporated in Delaware on December 12, 1918, by textile manufacturer William Poole Bancroft (1835-1928). Their records include charters, minutes, officer lists, directors' correspondence, real estate records, property maps, reports, drawings and specifications and newspaper and journal articles on the history of the Trustees and of the Bancroft family.

The Woodlawn Trustees, Incorporated, is a non-profit real estate development firm incorporated in Delaware on December 12, 1918, by textile manufacturer William Poole Bancroft (1835-1928). Records consist primarily of 35mm slides, mostly dating from 1989 to 2002, documenting Woodlawn Trustees properties throughout Wilmington and Brandywine Hundred, including low-income city housing, preserved farmland, greenways along the Brandywine Creek, and commercial properties on Concord Pike and the Wilmington waterfront.

WorldAutoSteel is an institutional membership organization comprised of eighteen major global steel producers dedicated to innovative vehicle steel application technologies that are environmentally sustainable and meet the automotive industry's needs. This collection consists of records that document a series of projects conducted by WorldAutoSteel, a unit of the World Steel Association. The files come from WorldAutoSteel headquarters, primarily from Edward Opbroek, who was the director of WorldAutoSteel from 2006 to 2011 and the program director for UltraLight Steel Auto Body (ULSAB) and UltraLight Steel Auto Body - Advanced Vehicle Concepts (ULSAB-AVC). These records would be of value to researchers interested in the intersection of the steel and automobile industries, automotive benchmarking, innovations in steel design and engineering, and communications strategies.

World's Columbian Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair which was staged from May to October, 1893, commemorated 400 years since Columbus's New World arrival. This small collection consists of four printed tickets to the World's Columbian Exposition, each bearing a different portrait: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Christopher Columbus, a Native American.

World's Columbian Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair which was staged from May to October, 1893, commemorated 400 years since Columbus's New World arrival. Souvenir paper fan containing a colored lithographic bird's-eye-view of the fairgrounds.

World's Columbian Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair which was staged from May to October, 1893, commemorated 400 years since Columbus's New World arrival. These two stereographs show two different views of the lagoon area at the World's Columbian Exposition.

World's Columbian Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair which was staged from May to October, 1893, commemorated 400 years since Columbus's New World arrival. The cover of the pop-up toy shows a bird's eye view of some buildings at the Exposition. The interior is composed of three facades.

World's Fairs or International Expositions are large-scale exhibitions that highlight technology, agriculture and other innovations of national or cultural significance. World's Columbian Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair which was staged from May to October, 1893, commemorated 400 years since Columbus's New World arrival. This small collection consists of four "pop-up books" from the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

World's Columbian Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair which was staged from May to October, 1893, commemorated 400 years since Columbus's New World arrival. This is a flyer advertising the American Aristotype Paper and G. Cramer photographic dry plates.

World's Fairs or International Expositions are large-scale exhibitions that highlight technology, agriculture and other innovations of national or cultural significance. This small collection consists of nine postcards primarily of buildings and exhibits from World's Fairs.

World's Fairs or International Expositions are large-scale exhibitions that highlight technology, agriculture and other innovations of national or cultural significance. These fairs are open to the general public and can run for three weeks to six months. This is a small collection of ephemera from various World's Fairs.

World's Fairs or International Expositions are large-scale exhibitions that highlight technology, agriculture and other innovations of national or cultural significance. World's Columbian Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair which was staged from May to October, 1893, commemorated 400 years since Columbus's New World arrival. This item is a book containing a collection of thirty-nine marching songs written as instrumentals for the piano.

The Worth Steel Company was a manufacturer of steel plates in Claymont, Delaware. Its records consist of papers from its operations and from its predecessor companies (Viaduct Iron Works and Worth Brothers Company, both of Coatesville, Pennsylvania). Items include correspondence, accounts, datasheets, agreements, closing papers in sale to Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation in 1951, and the sale of land in 1958.

Samuel Gardiner Wright (1781-1845) was a West Jersey Quaker merchant and ironmaster who conducted a wide-ranging mercantile business based in Philadelphia, iron furnaces in the New Jersey Pine Barrens and in southern Delaware and maintained a country house and farm in Monmouth County, N.J. The papers document his varied business interests, especially iron manufacture and sales. There are smaller quantities of papers from his wife, sons and grandson.

Papers of four generations of the Wright family of Monmouth County, New Jersey, and Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, particularly of Samuel G. Wright (1781-1845), Philadelphia merchant and general entrepreneur, and his son, Harrison Gardiner Wright (1810-1885), a gentleman farmer.

The Wurts family were involved in the anthracite coal industry. In 1823 four brothers: Maurice Wurts (1783-1854), William Wurts (1788-1858), Charles Stewart Wurts (1790–1859), and John Wurts (1792-1861) founded the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company originally to mine anthracite coal and transport the resource to New York. The company built the Delaware and Hudson Canal and later became the Delaware and Hudson Railway. The Wurts family papers were collected by John Sparhawk Wurts (1876-1958) and reflect both family papers and business records.

William Winder ‘Chick” Laird, Jr. (1910-1989) was a director of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and a financial advisor, starting his own brokerage firm in Wilmington, Delaware. This collection includes photographs of interiors and exteriors of du Pont family estates and homes in Delaware, as well as portraits and snapshots of du Pont and Laird family members. The collection also contains a large number of lantern slides, blueprints, maps, and film reels of home movies and family skits.

William Winder ‘Chick” Laird, Jr. (1910-1989) was a director of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and a financial advisor, starting his own brokerage firm in Wilmington, Delaware. He was the son of William Winder Laird (1878-1927) and Mary Alletta Belin DuPont Laird (1878–1938). He had four siblings. His mother was great granddaughter of Eleuthere Irenee du Pont (1771-1834), founder of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. His father, William Winder Laird (1878-1927) was actively involved in the DuPont Company as well as an advisor to his brother in law, Pierre S. du Pont (1870-1954). This is small collection of various items belonging to W. W. Laird Sr. and W.W.'Chick' Laird, Jr.

The Wyomissing Development Company was a housing development firm for the employees of a manufacturer of knitting machinery, the Textile Machine Works. Both companies were incorporated by Henry Janssen (1866-1948) and Ferdinand Thun (1866-1948). The collection contains two minute books which document the organization of the Wyomissing Development Company, the acquisition of land for the company town and other public facilities including stores, parks, playgrounds, schools, and hospitals.

The York Oil Burner Company was a manufacturer of oil-fired residential and commercial oil heating equipment. This collection consists of one album containing 80 black & white photographic prints of industrial equipment of the York Oil Burner Co., Inc. Many of the photographs are interior views of building basements showing York Oil Burner Co. equipment installed in the building's furnace system.

The York Safe and Lock Company manufactured safes and vaults. The firm was established in 1882 in York, Pennsylvania, by Israel Laucks (1827-1918). This small collection consists of five photographs of bank vault doors built by the York Safe & Lock Co. of York, Pennsylvania, in around 1935.

The Young and McAllister families were prominent families in the Associate Presbyterian community in Philadelphia. William Young (1755-1829) was a Philadelphia bookseller and later a manufacturer at Rockland, Delaware. John McAllister Jr. (1786-1877) ran the Philadelphia optical firm of that same name. This small collection of papers relate to the Young, McAllister, and Warner families. Approximately half of the material are correspondence from John Young, William Young, John McAllister Jr., and Joseph T. Warner; the other half are miscellaneous documents related to the families and businesses they were involved with including Rockland Manufacturing Company and McAllister Spectacle Company.

Consists of Z. Taylor Vinson's collection of transportation ephemera, which focuses primarily on automobile history but also documents other forms of transportation. Includes trade catalogs, books, magazines, and artifacts in addition to manuscripts relating to Vinson's career at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

For over sixty years, Zachary Taylor Vinson (1933-2009) amassed a large and comprehensive collection of printed material documenting on the history of transportation, particularly automobiles. This small collection of French lithographs depicts early aeronautical and motor vehicle subjects. All but one were designed by either Ernest Montaut (1879-1909) or his wife, Marguerite Montaut (1883-1936). The final print is by poster artist Georges Hamel (1900-1972).

The Zanol Products Company was a door-to-door consumer goods distributor. Founded in Cincinnati, Ohio circa 1908, Zanol developed its own line of household products which the company sold directly to consumers via door-to-door representatives. This collection consists of one salesman's case containing pamphlets, trade cards, trade catalogs, sewing needle cases, books of blank order forms, and other ephemera from the Zanol Products Company.