Finding Aids

The American Insulation Company was a manufacturer of asbestos tape, tubing, gloves, and other asbestos products. The company was founded in 1914 by John W. Latchum (1884-1953) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Beginning in the 1920s, it began manufacturing its patented and trademarked product, "Eternit" Asbestos Shingles. This album of photographs consists of exterior views of buildings, mostly residential homes, showcasing the new roofs. The captions of each image list the city, state, name of the head of residence or builder, color/type of shingle method used, and a brief sentence about the choice of roof color for the type of house. The estimated date range of the images is from the 1940s; however, it is possible that some date to a bit earlier or later.

Buckley Music System, Inc. was a manufacturer and distributor of jukebox music systems for businesses. This album is a salesman sample catalogue marketing the Buckley jukebox system for restaurants, bars, and clubs. The album consists of thirty-two photographs showing the interiors establishments who have implemented the system.

Canada Dry is a brand of soft drinks best known for its ginger ale. Canada Dry had its beginning when John McLaughlin (1865-1914) opened a small carbonated water plant in Toronto, Canada, in 1890 to manufacture soda water. In the 1930s the company introduced other Canada Dry mixers. Canada Dry expanded worldwide during this period. The album was created as a salesman's flip chart for Canada Dry distributors to show retailers. There are images of Canada Dry products, views of bottling plants and the manufacturing process, as well as advertisements and merchant testimonials.

The Coca-Cola Company is a multinational corporation in the beverage industry, best known for its soft drink Coca-Cola, which was formulated in 1886 by Dr. John Stith Pemberton (1831-1888) as a medicinal syrup for headaches. The company has since evolved to produce a wide variety of beverages and associated products. This small collection consists of a sales catalog and price list showing retailers' options for Coca-Cola point-of-sale advertisements that would encourage customers to purchase additional items before exiting the store, stored in a binder. The binder was updated periodically between 1958 and 1960.

The Dayton Display Fixture Company manufactured and sold grocery store display equipment. Headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, the firm operated between 1919 and World War II, selling metal shelving and refrigerated and electrified fruit and vegetable displays. This collection consists of a single album containing sales sample photographs that show product and floor displays for grocery store fruits and vegetables and dry goods in the 1930s.

The Disposor Corporation was the sales agent for the General Fan Corporation of New York City in the 1930s. This collection consists of fourteen photographs of the General Fan Corporation's various mechanical products (ventilation and cooling units) on display at exhibits or installed in businesses, including a ship and restaurants. The album was put together by the Disposor Corporation for sales purposes.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. This small collections consists of five DuPont Company promotional items or giveaways, primarily related to Freon products.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company. In 1910, the DuPont Company purchased the Fabrikoid Company of Newburgh, New York, which had developed a textile coating process. This item is a portfolio of separate pages with two photographs per page placed in a folder made of blue Fabrikoid. The photographs illustrate Fabrikoid, a DuPont Company artificial leather material, used as upholstery and in a variety of commercial and residential interior applications.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. While cellophane was invented in Switzerland, it was not until DuPont acquired the patent in 1923 that allowed DuPont scientist William Hale Charch (1898-1958) to improve it so that it was impervious to water vapor. DuPont produced cellophane until 1986. This collection consists of undated photographs, one saleman's album, and one poster that all relate to cellophane packaging.

Floyd Hollenbeck (1920-2002) worked for Trimfit Hosiery, a distribution company for Hanes Hosiery Mills Company. Hanes Hosiery Mills Company was established in 1901. Hanes was an early adoptor of manufacturing nylon hosiery which was created in 1938. Hanes Hosiery Mills researched and developed seamless pantyhose by the mid-1960s. This collection contains twenty-four stereoviews of the Hanes Hosiery Mills Company Winston-Salem manufacturing plant and offices.

Frigidaire Corporation manufactures and distributes major appliances for domestic and industrial use. Gilead Elijah Turner (1903-1929) worked for the company's Advertising Stock Department from 1928 until his death in 1929. The scrapbook was assembled by Turner and dedicated to his co-worker, Dean M. Livingston (1903-1963), who worked in the same department. The album contains sales catalogs, sales forms, and pitches for the company refrigerators focusing on food preservation and avoiding food spoilage due to mold, yeast, and bacteria. Numerous newspaper clippings are about sales executives and company founders, developments in food safety, and the importance of hard work for company success.

The Geo D. Whitcomb Company was a manufacturer of coal mining machinery and industrial locomotives. The album is a factory salesman sample photograph album for the gasoline powered Whitcomb mining and switching engines. There are two Whitcomb catalogs and an original offprint from the 1932 Railway Age.

Kelvinator was founded in Detroit in 1916. Nathaniel B. Wales (1883-1974) was the founding engineer, and he had been developing home refrigeration units. By 1923, Kelvinator had the lion’s share of the electric refrigerator market at eighty percent. This album appears to be a wholesaler's catalog showing sketched illustrations of the exteriors and interiors of Kelvinator refrigerator models.

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.

The Tel-Gas Corporation manufactured, sold, and leased remote-control self-service gasoline station pumps and other allied equipment. Herbert W. Timms (1929-2014) was an oil industry specialist and inventor. One of his inventions was gas pumps that could be activated by an attendant inside a convenience store and automatically reset. This item is an album containing a sales sample promotional catalog and photographs dating from 1965 to 1966.

The Bronfman family of Canada acquired the Joseph E. Seagram & Sons Co. of Waterloo, Ontario, in 1927. By the 1950s, Seagram was one of the world's largest alcoholic beverage firms. This collection is composed of photographs used as illustrations in The Seagram Spotlight, a "monthly house organ published by and for the staff of Seagram Distiller's Corporation," according to the 20th anniversary issue (December 1936).

Frigidaire Corporation manufactures and distributes major appliances for domestic and industrial use. By 1929, Frigidaire sold one million refrigerators. This item is a floor demonstration display catalog, a well-illustrated sales pitch for purchasing Frigidaire's refrigerators. It includes text, diagrams, color plates of Frigidaire models, and black-and-white photographs.

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 Warren-Ehret Company was a Philadelphia roofing company founded in 1883. This collection consists of 259 images from three unbound albums which were used as sales portfolios to show the variety and extent of Warren-Ehret's roofing jobs on a variety of buildings.