Finding Aids

James Henry Yeager (1911-1986) was the industrial photographer for the Bethlehem Steel Corporation for thirty years, between 1946 and 1976. The first half of this collection contains photographs taken by James H. Yeager during his tenure at Bethlehem Steel as industrial photographer. The second half the this collection consists of photos and slides taken by Yeager while traveling in Pennsylvania, New York, and New England, and to a lesser degree Washington, DC and the southern United States.

The Joy Manufacturing Company was a major manufacturer of underground mining and materials handling machinery. The photographs were collected by retired corporate secretary James Packer (1920-2008) in 1985 for the purpose of writing a company history. This small collection consists of photographs, mostly group portraits of staff. The collection dates range from the 1921 to 1988. The materials are so sporadic that there is no bulk date.

The Winterthur estate is now known as Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library located in Wilmington, Delaware. The estate is the former home of Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969) who was born there on May 27, 1880, the son of Henry Algernon du Pont and the great-grandson of E.I. du Pont, the founder of the DuPont Company. These postcards show the estate at Winterthur, a garden walkway, and a metal sundial in a Winterthur garden as photographed in 1908.

James R. Thomen (1926-) was manager of the Experimental Station from 1975 to 1985 when he retired. The DuPont Company's Experimental initially, was to be a small laboratory to screen inventions which were coming into the company from outside independent inventors specifically for research on black powder, smokeless powder, and dynamite, but soon its mission was altered and it became a large industrial research facility focused on innovative advancements in chemistry. This collection consists primarily of photographs of buildings at the Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware taken between 1910 and 1950.

This collection consists of glass plate negatives showing scenes from Carbon County, Pennsylvania during the second half of the nineteenth century, as well as a selection of archival prints. The majority of the images show scenes from Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe) and the surrounding area, the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway, and the waterfalls at Glen Onoko.

David Jayne (1798-1866) purchased a drug store in Philadelphia in 1836. His patent medicine business grew quickly and he built this new building in 1850. The building was designed by American architects, William J. Johnston (1811-1849) and Thomas U. Walter (1804-1887) and was located at 242 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The firm of Dr. D. Jayne and Son was one of the largest patent medicine firms in the United States, and this building was "the most conspicuous building of the time" in Philadelphia. Engraved on wood and printed by William B. Gihon (dates unknown), an illustrator and engraver.

Campbell Waterwheel Company specialized in traditional water wheels and how they could be used as esthetic elements in the landscape. Consequently, much of the company's work was for decorative power plants for private estates or for historic restorations. The collection consists of photographs of an unidentified electrically-powered water wheel.

Campbell Waterwheel Company specialized in traditional water wheels and how they could be used as esthetic elements in the landscape. Consequently, much of the company's work was for decorative power plants for private estates or for historic restorations. The collection consists of graphic materials related to J.B. Campbell and the Campbell Water Wheel Company. The bulk of the collection contains photographs of company projects, arranged alphabetically by client or contractor name. These include views of water wheels, turbines, and water supply systems during various stages of installation. There are also views of mills, dams, flumes, hydroelectric power plants, irrigation gates, swimming pools, and hydraulic machinery.

James "Jim" Joseph Dallas, Sr. (1932-2019) was a photographer employed by the DuPont Company, a chemical company. He worked at DuPont for ten years before opening his own industrial and commercial photography business, Dallas Studios based in Wilmington, Delaware. In 1968, Dallas also worked as a freelance commercial and industrial photographer. Companies such as the Speakman Company, Strescon Industries, Cytometrics Incorporated, and ICI America Incorporated are just a few of the industries he worked for. This collection consists of images from Jim Dallas’ assignments primarily for the DuPont Company. The collection of negatives and photographic prints are arranged into five different sereis: I. Sites, II. Products, III. Advertisements and publications, IV. Events and meetings, and V. People.

The John B. Stetson Company was a manufacturer of hats. The company was founded in 1865 by John B. Stetson (1830-1906) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company's Kensington plant consisted of twenty-five buildings covering nine acres at Germantown and Montgomery Avenues. During its heyday in the 1920s it employed over 5,000 people to make its hats. This is a small collection of photographs and other material relating to the company. The photographs focus on the workers in and around the factory and its amenities.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company was established in 1802. The du Pont family purchased a mill site on the banks of the Brandywine River just North of Wilmington, Delaware for the production of black powder. In 1902 the DuPont Company acquired the Smith Electric Fuze Company and some other properties in the Pompton Lakes, New Jersey area. The DuPont Company also operated a dynamite plant near Hancock, Michigan. This collection consists of snapshot photographs from the works at Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, and others from a plant in Michigan, most likely the Senter dynamite works near Hancock, Michigan.

John Foster Tucker III (1950-2008) was a Philadelphia-born rail transit operating official and rail history enthusiast. This collection consists of photographs of trolleys, trains, rails lines, and rail stations in Philadelphia and the city's Pennsylvania suburbs, as well as offices, maintenance shops, and garages used by transit authorities. Most of the collection is devoted to SEPTA, but predecessor companies PTC (Philadelphia Transportation Company) and PSTC (Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company) are also represented.

John Farrell Metten (1873-1968) was a marine engineer and shipbuilding industry executive. This collection contains photographic prints, postcards, documents, drawings, and an identification card pertaining to the career of John Farrell Metten and views of Naval ships built at the New York Shipbuilding Company, Camden, New Jersey.

John G. Townsend Jr. (1871-1964) was a politician, a businessman, and a banker. He served as Governor of Delaware from 1917 to 1921 and as Delaware’s U.S. Senator from 1929 to 1941. He operated a lumber business, cannery, orchard, and then a large poultry farm called Townsend Inc. Farms. This small collection documents Townsend’s work in politics and in the poultry industry. There is a fair amount of biographical information authored by Louise Stanton Johnson, who worked as Townsend’s secretary during his time as Senator. The collection has been arranged into four series: Governor and Senatorial papers; Townsend Inc. Farms records; Louise Stanton Johnson papers and Printing plates and seals. The materials in the collection date from 1908 to 1977, with a bulk of the materials from the 1930s through the 1950s.

The John Horn Printing Company was a printing firm that specialized in printing labels and ribbons. This sample album contains 131 embossed die-cut labels pasted on thirty-two pages for a variety of products.

John Raskob (1879-1950) was a financial executive for the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. and General Motors, and builder of the Empire State Building. The collection primarily consists of construction progress photographs of the Durant Building in Detroit, Michighan in 1919 and 1920. There is a small set of images of a renovation at Raskob's Archmere estate in 1916, and a few portraits and snapshots of Raskob.

John Margolies (1940-2016) was an American photographer and architecture critic with a fondness for novelty architecture. This is his personal collection of postcards and photographs from across North America. These materials primarily cover the United States’ most popular tourist spots along with various businesses. There is heavy coverage of the Northeast region of the United States, where Margolies lived most of his life. Postcards are primarily from the first half of the twentieth century, and photographs primarily span circa 1890-1920s. Postcards cover a wide range of subjects from famous attractions to local businesses, and photographs are almost entirely local businesses, many being interior views of family owned businesses with their owners. Few objects are contained within the collection, including signs from local businesses and a scrapbook from the honeymoon of an unidentified couple. A small amount of transparencies and negatives conclude the collection, which were used for the planning of some of Margolies books. It is important to note that this collection does not contain John Margolies original photography, except for the few postcards that advertise his exhibits.

John McShain (1898-1989) was a Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.-based building contractor, whose firm, John McShain, Inc., was by 1950 the fifth largest construction firm in the United States. The collection contains graphic materials documenting John McShain's family life and personal interests, his career as a building contractor, and his involvement in horse racing.

Advertising, both print and radio, developed as a prominent industry in the early decades of the twentieth century as popular magazine circulation exploded and the radio became ubiquitous in American households. This collection consists of digital access copies of publications, including employee magazines, and magazine advertisements for radios and other related household electronics dating from 1912 to 1980.

John Trageser Steam Copper Works manufactured galvanized and copper range boilers, expansion tanks, hot water tanks, as well as; sinks, drainboards and bathtubs. This item is a page (March 1926) from a calendar of the John Trageser Steam Copper Works of New York. A humorous color illustration by Tony Sarg shows four men golfers "Limbering up at the first tee."

John W. Macklem (1867-1948) began working for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company as an errand boy at a young age and remained with the company his entire career. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. This collection comprises photographs of buildings and scenes in DuPont Company explosives manufacturing plants along the Brandywine Creek near Wilmington, Delaware, including the Eleutherian Mills (or Upper) yard, the Upper Hagley yard, and the Lower Hagley yard.

In 1875, Philadelphia merchant, John Wanamaker, bought a freight railroad depot at 13th and Market Streets and made it Philadelphia’s first department store. In 1909, Wanamaker bought a huge pipe organ and installed it in Grand Court of the new building. Octave Denis Victor Guillonnet (1872-1967) was a French painter and medallic artist. This collection is a folded momento with of a reproduction of "Adoration of the Magi" triptych painted by O. D. V. Guillonnet which was exhibited in the Organ Loft, Grand Court of the John Wanamaker store, Philadelphia.

The Jones Brokerage Company was a food brokerage business founded by Otis V. Jones Jr. (1915-2003) in 1946, as Associated Foods in Raleigh, North Carolina. This small collection contains samples of packaging for bread, coffee, desserts, produce, meats, sausages, and salt.

Joseph A. Speel (1810?-1891) was a bookbinder in Philadelphia. This advertisement shows an interior view of the bindery printed in at least two colors with hand tinting.

Joseph Bancroft, an Englishman trained in textile weaving in Lancashire, established his own cotton mill on the Brandywine near Wilmington, Delaware in 1831. This operation became the Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company in 1889, and in 1929 it absorbed the Eddystone Manufacturing Co. These images include plant exteriors and interiors, officials and employees, aerials, workers' housing, machinery, floods, and dams and races on Brandywine Creek as well as many Ban-Lon and Miss America fashion photographs. This collection includes approximately 1060 images covering a period from the late 19th century to the 1960s.

Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company manufactured, bleached, dyed, and finished a variety cotton-made goods. In July of 1958, The Spunize Company of America filed a lawsuit against one of Bancroft's licensees, the Duplan Corporation. The Spunize Company alleged that Duplan Corp. had committed patent infringement of a yarn crimping process that Duplan licensed from Bancroft. This collection consists of photographs and motion picture film depicting the yarn crimping process and the crimped yarn. A majority of the materials were created with the intention of being submitted as evidence in the court case.

Joseph Bancroft (1803-1874), an Englishman trained in textile weaving in Lancashire, established his own cotton mill on the Brandywine near Wilmington in 1831. The operation became the Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company in 1889. The photographs consist of images related to the Joseph Bancroft & Sons textile mills in the Rockford and, later, Kentmere areas on the banks of the Brandywine River. These images include plant exteriors and interiors, officials and employees, aerials, workers' housing, machinery, floods, and dams and races on Brandywine Creek.

Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company manufactured, bleached, dyed, and finished a variety cotton-made goods. A panoramic view of Bancroft Mills in Wilmington, Delaware.

Joseph Horn (1861-1941) and Frank Hardart (1850-1918) founded Horn & Hardart, a food service company, in 1888. In 1902, Horn and Hardart opened their first Automat in Philadelphia. The first New York City Automat opened in 1912, and other locations followed in both cities. The Automat became a huge success in Philadelphia and New York City, daily serving hundreds of thousands of people in its heyday. This item is a framed portrait photograph of Joseph Horn from around the 1930s.

Joseph Lawrence Kochka (1892-1952) and Mary Murray Kochka (1893-1984) were high school teachers in the Washington, D.C., area from the 1920s through the 1940s. Mary Kochka continued teaching through the 1950s. The couple was married in 1926. This collection consists of a travelogue photograph album detailing the Kochkas' two-week tour through Syracuse and Palmyra, New York, with Holman Rides Inc., an outdoor amusement ride and carnival business, in August 1950. The Kochkas were hosted by company owners Lucy Holman Sprague (1894-1954) and Leonard "Speed" Sprague (1902-1970). There are images of the Spragues' home, their neighbors' homes, ride erection/disassembly crews, ticket booths, crew quarters, transport trucks, and views of the fairgrounds. Rides pictured include the Tilt-a-Whirl, Merry-go-Round, Ferris Wheel, and Baby Tug. Lucy and Speed Holman are often seen along with their dog, Dundee. Most images have extensive captions.

The leather manufacturing firm of Joshua Conner & Son was founded in 1848 by James Conner (1813-1880). This collection consists of five photographs of the storefront, store interiors and portraits of the proprietors.

Karen du Pont Farquhar (1947-) is the great-granddaughter of T. Coleman du Pont (1863-1930), president of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company in the early 20th century. This collection of photographs is part of a larger group of du Pont family papers, which are housed in the Manuscripts and Archives Department. The photograph collection includes many photographs of the du Pont family from 1882 to 1960.

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.

Kennard-Pyle Company was a department store known for its women's clothing, and in the late-twentieth century it was one of Delaware's oldest independent clothing retailer. The collection consists of photographs relating to the Kennard's Department Store centennial celebration (1846-1946).

The Keystone View Company was a major distributor of stereographic images. The company was founded by amateur photographer, B. L. (Benjamin Lloyd) Singley (1864-1938) in Meadville, Pennsylvania, in 1892. There are two stereographs in this collection, the first card shows "The Most Costly Docks in the Western Hemisphere, Buenos Aires, Argentina" and the second shows "Market Scene in Berkovitza, Bulgaria."

The Laflin and Rand Powder Company, one of the largest gunpowder manufacturers in the nineteenth century, was formed from several predecessor companies, including the Laflin Powder Company and the Smith & Rand Powder Company. This item is the 1899 calendar with an illustration of a sailor from the U.S.S. Oregon.

The Laflin and Rand Powder Company, one of the largest gunpowder manufacturers in the nineteenth century, was formed from several predecessor companies. The company was acquired by DuPont in October of 1902, and it was operated as a subsidiary. This is a group of four display card advertisements for Laflin & Rand Powder, probably for point-of-sale or counter display.

The Laflin & Rand Powder Company was one of the largest gunpowder manufacturers during the nineteenth century. Frederick W. Beers (1839-1933) was a New York map publisher. This item is a lithograph depicting the powder mills and surrounding landscape, and it is pages 16 and 17 of "County Atlas of Ulster, New York: From Recent and Actual Surveys and Records," by author F.W. Beers.

Lammot du Pont, Jr. (1909-1964) was Assistant Vice President of the Wilmington Trust Company. He began his employment there in 1931, previously he was employed at the Fokker Aircraft Corporation. Lammot, Jr., assembled a large collection of books, manuscripts, prints, drawings and photographs. This collection documents the history of aviation and primarily consists of images of aircraft which date from 1915 through 1950. A majority of the images are various views of aircraft only and are devoid of people, though there are a number of images that include pilots. There are prints and lithographs of early aircraft and balloons (dirigibles) which date as early as the 1780s. The collection has been arranged into five series by format.

Lammot du Pont Copeland (1905-1983) was an American businessman, great-great-grandson of E.I. du Pont (1771-1834), and chief executive officer of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. This collection primarily consists of portrait photographs of members of the du Pont, Belin, Copeland, Gratiot, La Motte, and related families. There are also two small booklets containing prints of various du Pont and Cunningham homes.

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.

Local Maryland historian and private collector Larry R. Paul (b. 1935) has had an extensive career as an exhibit designer, cataloger, and antiques dealer. The collection consists of a database, created by Larry R. Paul, of over 20,000 hotels operating in the United States during the eighteenth century up to the year 2000, although it includes some details on more recent changes to buildings.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company was established in 1802 by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) and his son Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834). Throughout the 1900s and 1910s, the company shifted its focus away from gunpowder production and towards chemistry innovations. This item is the Spanish language version of "Wonder World of Chemistry" which shows chemical products produced by the DuPont Company.

The Lawrance Engineering and Research Corporation manufactured auxiliary power plants for airplanes. The firm was founded in 1930 in Linden, New Jersey, by aviator Charles L. Lawrance (1882-1950). This small collection of blueprints shows auxiliary power plant equipment.

Thomas Lea (1757–1823) joined in partnership with Joseph Tatnall (1740–1813), and passed on the Tatnall-Lea grain mills in Wilmington, Delaware to his son William Lea (1805-1876), who took over operation of the mills in 1837. In 1864, William Lea brought his sons Henry Lea (1839-1888) and Preston Lea (1841-1916) into the firm, changing the name to William Lea & Sons Company. This collection includes portraits of members of the Lea and related families. These include such family names as Tatnall, Warner, Preston, Ferris, Downing, Spruance, Lovett, Moore, Bush, Ely, and others.

This reproduction (copied from an original cabinet card) is of Lea Pusey (1820-1896) photographed through a large block of clear ice. Pusey created the plate process, a method to make commercial ice and was the founder of Diamond Ice Company.

This collection contains photographs of the LeCarpentier, Green and Baker families who were farmers and merchants in the Delaware valley area. The majority of the collection consists of formal portraits of family members, a small number of which are identified, as well as views of various locations around Wilmington, Delaware.

The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad company in the northeastern United States primarily used to haul anthracite coal from Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe), Pennsylvania, to Easton, Pennsylvania. This collection consists of twenty-two glass negatives and one box. Most photographs depict the rolling stock of Lehigh Valley Railroad dating to approximately some point between 1934 and 1948, based on engine numbers.

Leonard W. Walton (1911-2005) was a printing industry executive with Milprint, Inc., which specialized in printing packaging materials, between 1936 and 1976. This collection of photographs related to Milprint, Inc was collected by Leonard W. Walton. A majority of the photographs show Milprint employees attending events, banquets, and dinners, including Quarter Century Club celebrations.

Lepley & Joswick Photographers was a commercial photographic studio in Chicago, Illinois, between 1946 and 1952. The firm was a partnership between Alden D. Lepley (1911-2003) and Gerald "Jerry" J. Joswick (1923-1990). In 1946, Lepley and Joswick opened a photography studio at 5121 W. Devon Ave. in Chicago. Their clients were mainly industrial ones. Both partners continued to pursue side projects and give lectures separately. This small collection of photographs features a range of commercial images depicting different areas of industry in Chicago between 1940 and 1952. It includes food factory assembly line workers, canned and boxed food products, home appliances and electronics, and interior home designs.