Finding Aids

The Associated Factory Mutual Fire Insurance Companies comprised twenty-eight mutual insurance firms that specialized in industrial fire insurance. The collection consists of seventy original hand-colored plans and maps primarily depicting textile mills, paper products factories and foundries in New England and New York.

Members of the Curtis family were paper manufacturers at Newton Lower Falls, Massachusetts, and Newark, Delaware. Alfred A. Curtis (1848-1945) was president of the family paper company from 1911 to 1926. The papers consist of personal and family items collected by Alfred A. Curtis. Included in the collection is a scrapbook of photographs and newspaper clippings, a number of loose papers and clippings, and several histories of the Curtis Paper Company. The papers also contain some letters and notes of Alfred A. Curtis, many connected with genealogy and family history.

The Curtis Paper Company was a small producer specializing in high-quality paper located in Newark, Delaware. This small collection of records consists of incorporation papers from 1911 and financial reports dating from 1941 to 1946. There are two agreements and two letters related to the sale of the company from Alfred A. Curtis (1848-1945) to Charles M. Levis (1859-1941) and Herbert W. Mason (1882-1939) in 1926.

Delmarva Power and Light Company is a regulated energy company that provides electricity and natural gas services to customers in the Delmarva Peninsula. These 1926 images document the construction of gas towers and substations at the Christiana and Brandywine power plants in the Wilmington, Delaware.

Harpers Ferry Paper Company and Shenandoah Pulp Company were established in the late nineteenth century by Thomas H. Savery (1837-1910) along the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. This small collection contains a production graph and chart showing financial positions on a comparative basis for the companies.

Harpers Ferry Paper Company and Shenandoah Pulp Company were established in the late nineteenth century by Thomas H. Savery (1837-1910) along the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. The papers contain certificates of incorporation, financial notes, reports and charts on operation costs, statistical data on wood and pulp, inventories of material on hand at the mill, and correspondence with Horace H. Thayer Jr. (1878-1959), Savery's son-in-law.

Joshua Gilpin (1765-1841) was a merchant and paper manufacturer. Article written by historians Harold B. Hancock and Norman B. Wilkinson, "Joshua Gilpin: an American manufacturer in England and Wales, 1895-1801," based on Gilpin's journals.

Morgan Paper Company plant manufactured tissue paper. The plant located in Lititz, Pennsylvania was built by John H. Wickersham Engineering and Construction Company. The collection contains four photographic prints of Morgan Paper Company plant.

NVF Company was a manufacturer of laminated plastic plates and sheets composed of only cellulose; the material is called vulcanized fibre. Initially named the National Vulcanized Fibre Company, it was formed in 1922 by Israel Way Marshall (1850-1911) and Thomas Elwood Marshall (1855-1929) in Yorklyn, Delaware. NVF Company was one of the three largest fibre companies in the country and eventually dissolved in the early twenty-first century. The NVF Company collection consists of records beginning in the 1870s, before the official creation of the company, and continues until the dissolution of the company. These materials include the history of the Marshall family, the formation of the National Vulcanized Fibre Company, administrative and presidential papers, publications and reports, marketing and publicity materials, subject files, labor contracts, employee grievances, and arbitration cases.

The Pusey & Jones Corporation were shipbuilders, founders, and machinists of Wilmington, Delaware, which later expanded into papermaking machinery manufacturing. This collection contains miscellaneous material from the company including financial statements, calling cards, memoranda, and correspondence from Thomas H. Savery (Sr. and Jr.), Eugen Fullner, and A.G. Paine.

Rockland is an unincorporated old mill village in New Castle County, Delaware, and was later surrounded by du Pont family estates. The collection contains twelve edited oral history transcripts by Mary Laird Silvia (1938-2013) with people who lived in Rockland.

The collection primarily consists of images featuring the Marshall family and their relatives and friends, both in formal group portraits and more casual poses.

Thomas H. Savery (1837-1910) was president of Pusey, Jones and Company, a shipbuilder and papermaking machinery manufacturer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1864 he married Sarah Pim Savery (1837-1928). This collection consists of ther business and personal papers of Thomas H. Savery, primarily related to his papermaking machinery ventures, and twenty-nine diaries of Sarah Pim Savery.

Thomas H. Savery (1837-1910) was president of Pusey, Jones and Company, a major ship builder and manufacturer of papermaking machinery in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The papers are a fragmentary collection of Savery's diary, correspondence, and financial papers. The materials document his early career, papermaking machinery business ventures, some personal correspondence, and speeches.

The Brandywine Valley is a rural region of Southeast Pennsylvania and Northern Delaware celebrated for its historical ties to Revolutionary-era America. This collection contains two b&w engraved prints of depictions of the Brandywine area.

William H. Savery (1865-1949) was a paper manufacturer and president of the Harpers Ferry Paper Company, the Harpers Ferry Electic Light Company, and the Shenandoah Pulp Company. He was also president and general manager of the Parsons Engineering Company. The collection documents Savery's involvement with the Parsons Engineering Company, the York Haven and Harpers Ferry Paper Company from 1899 to 1920.

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.