Finding Aids

The Wilmington Shops were preceded by the first DuPont Company machine shop facilities on the Brandywine River. This is a collection of photographs from the DuPont's Company Wilmington Shops, a large machine shop that produced specialized equipment which was used in DuPont Company plants. A few of the images show the interior of the shops, but the majority picture individual machines

F.F. Slocomb Corporation was a manufacturer of special machinery and component parts. The Company was established as F.F. Slocomb & Company in 1898, in Wilmington, Delaware by Frank F. Slocomb (1860-1931). This collection consists largely of unidentified loose photographs of machinery produced by the company. There are six views taken on the shop floor; some of these show workers.

The Lamson & Sessions Company was a top manufacturer of bolts, nuts and other fasteners. In 1866, the Mt. Carmel Bolt Company was formed by brothers Thomas H. (1827-1882) and Isaac P. Lamson (1832-1912) with Samuel W. Sessions (1824-1902) in Southington, Connecticut. The company moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1869. During World War II, the company was one of the largest manufacturers of fasteners in the United States. In 1981, the company sold its industrial fastener division to Russell, Burdsall & Ward Corporation of Cleveland, Ohio. Lamson & Sessions Company survives today through two business segments: Carlon and Lamson Home Products.

The collection contains nineteen 16mm films dating from the 1940s to 1973. Many of the films are documents of employees working in Lamson & Sessions factories. Some of these depict female employees in the workplace. Several more show machines and presses being run in the creation of bolts or nuts.

Richards, London & Kelley manufactured pattern-making machinery for woodworking. The firm founded, The Atlantic Works in 1869 for the manufacture of machines especially directed to railway car manufacturing, and Band Sawing Machinery. This collection consists of illustrations of woodworking machinery and descriptions from trade catalogs that are pasted into an album. The machinery was produced in Philadelphia by The Atlantic Works (also DBA Richards, London and Kelley).

Charles William Feil Sust (1885-1947) and his son Carl William Sust (1914-1996) were employees at William Sellers & Co. Both worked as sheet metal workers in the 1930s and 1940s. William Sellers & Co. was an iron works that manufactured machine tools used for turning, planing, shaping, drilling, boring, or cutting metal or wood. This small collection is primarily photographs of machine tools manufactured by the William Sellers & Co. in the 1930s and 1940s. There are several photographs of various rooms and shops at the company, three include Charles Sust. There are a few publications and blueprints, as well as employee pins.

The Trundle Engineering Company was an industrial engineering management consulting company based in Cleveland, Ohio. Clients would hire Trundle Engineering Company to perform studies on their organization or operating methods. One aspect of the business was the design and manufacture of custom machinery for increased efficiency. This album is a salesman sample photograph album providing an overview of inventions and technology developed by the Trundle Engineering Company. Machinery represented here includes spiral meat-cutting machine, matchbook cover book-cutting machine, traffic signal control boxes, spinning machine for making artificial silk, ice cream freezing machinery, remote control spotlight, and a golf ball center compression test machine.

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.