Finding Aids

Colonel Franklin T. Matthias (1908-1993) was commanding officer and area engineer of the Hanford Engineer Works of the Manhattan Engineer District. These are Colonel Matthias's personal papers documenting his work on the Manhattan Project. They include original declassified documents from Hanford and a variety of newspaper clippings and magazine articles collected by Matthias between the time he left Hanford to his death, reflecting his continuing interest in the Manhattan Project and nuclear power.

Fred C. Ielfield (1864-1948) was a mechanical engineer and inventor. This collection consists of twelve patents for mail canceling and postmarking machinery, corn-husking machinery, and a cereal cutter, all invented by Ielfield.

Fred L. Bechly (1924-2004) was an electrical engineer who worked for RCA's Camden, New Jersey, plant, where he aided in the invention of the Tricolor Kinescope Monitor, which became the standard for color television. His papers describe his work with RCA in television and video recording from 1944 to 1983.

Frederick J. LeMaistre (1879-1944) was a chemical engineer employed by the E.I. du Pont de Nemours Powder Company at its Eastern Laboratory for fourteen years. This collection consists of ten volumes; seven are LeMaistre's laboratory notebooks documenting his work on nitrates, nitroglycerin, artificial silk (rayon), pyralin, and solvents. Also included are two souvenir logbooks of tours by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and one Niagara Oil Company of Philadelphia cashbook.

Frederick G. Singer (1897-1971) was a manager for the Tariff Division of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company's Development Department, working out of the foreign office in Paris, France. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont Company. This small collection consists mostly of organizational charts and lists of officers and products of the DuPont Company and the Grasselli Chemical Company, as well as the products of their competitors, between 1936 and 1937.

Frederick William Wood (1857-1943) was an executive and engineer in the steel and shipbuilding industries. His papers constitute a major source on the history of the American steel industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The papers are primarily official records of the various companies with which Wood was associated.

Gabriel Manigault (1758-1809) was a Charleston merchant, plantation owner, architect, and South Carolina state Representative. In 1805, Manigault sold part of his property in South Carolina and moved to Clifton, an estate near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. These are copies of Manigault's letters relating to members of the du Pont family.

Gabrielle Crofton (1873-1952) was the daughter of Gabrielle Josephine Shubrick (1835-1894) and Robert Erskine Anderson Crofton (1834-1898), and the great-granddaughter of Victor Marie du Pont (1767-1827), a prominent French American diplomat and businessman. The collection consists of two diaries, dating from 1917 to 1926, and reflect the leisured life of a middle-class, unmarried woman in the first quarter of the twentieth century United States.

Gabrielle Josephine de La Fite de Pelleport (1770-1837) was the wife of Victor du Pont (1767-1827), a French American diplomat, politician, and businessman. He was the brother of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834), the founder of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. The account book is supposedly the household account book of du Pont and contains handwriting of various people, including her son Charles I. du Pont (1797-1869). Entries include purchases of coal, whiskey, soap, candles, and other items, as well as construction materials and tools.

Gabrielle Shubrick Crofton (1835-1894) was the daughter of Irvine Shubrick (1797-1849) and Julia du Pont (1806-1882), and the wife of Colonel Robert Crofton (1834-1898). His military service meant the family moved to where he was stationed. The papers consist primarily of correspondence between Crofton and her husband and mother, including an eight-year span living in army posts in the Dakota Territory.

Gardner Associates performs oral history research for corporations and institutions in the Delaware Valley area. The company was founded in 1987 by Joel R. Gardner (1942-). Gardner Associates records reflect the company's business operations from 1988 through 2014. The collection has been arranged into three series: Administrative and consulting files; Clients and proposals; and Articles, publications, and presentations. The Clients and proposals series is the largest series, consisting of correspondence, research notes, interview transcripts, and project proposals.

Geist & Geist, Inc., was a manufacturer of women's knitwear products, typical of the small, flexible family firms that dominated New York City's famous Garment District for much of the twentieth century. The records of Geist & Geist, Inc., document the activities, especially design, publicity and marketing.

The General Radio Company was incorporated in 1915, in Cambridge, Massachussets by Melville Eastham (1885-1964), and was famed for their development and manufacture of electronic instruments, test equipment, laboratory standards throughout the twentieth century. The General Radio Company History materials largely document the efforts to write a synthetic history of the General Radio Company in the late 1980s and early 1990s, supported by the IEEE History Center. While Joseph F. Keithley headed the project, it was conceived as a collaborative endeavor with various persons each writing a chapter on their topic of specialty. Additionally, there is a large binder labeled, “Company Data” containing alphabetically organized information about other firms involved in the manufacture and development of precision measuring instruments over the course of the twentieth century.

Geoffrey David Austrian (1930-) is an author and journalist. He first became interested in the life of Herman Hollerith (1860-1929), inventor of the puched-card system of data processing, while working for the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), the firm that grew out of Hollerith's invention. This collections includes the research materials Austrian used to write the book Herman Hollerith: Forgotten Giant of Information Processing. Austrian's research includes notes from interviews with Hollerith family members and copies of materials from the IBM archives and other repositories, including the New York Public Library.

George A. Richardson (1886-1976) was an engineer with an expertise in metallurgy. He spent his career primarily involved in technical publicity and sales for major steel manufacturers such as the Midvale Steel & Ordnance Company and the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The papers consist primarily of materials collected by Richardson during the performance of his official duties with the steel companies, in preparing technical lectures and papers, and in teaching courses in metallurgy.

George A. Richardson (1886-1976) was an engineer with an expertise in metallurgy. He spent his career primarily involved in technical publicity and sales for major steel manufacturers such as the Midvale Steel & Ordnance Company and Metallurgical Laboratories, Inc. (METLAB). These records consist primarily of materials collected by Richardson during the performance of his official duties with the steel companies, in preparing technical lectures and papers, and in teaching courses in metallurgy.

George Bowen (1799-1879) founded a ship chandler's business in Newport, Rhode Island, around 1829, as the George Bowen & Company. The fragmentary records consist of sixteen volumes of account books, which describe the mechanics of the business and the retail trade in coal and wood, giving names of customers, quantities of goods bought and sold, and operating expenses.

The George H. Gilbert & Company manufactured broadcloth and cloakings in Ware, Massachusetts, and high-grade woolen flannels, for which it developed a national reputation until 1930. The records consist of applications for fire insurance and insurance policies covering the woolen mill, Gilbert's house, tenant housing, and outbuildings.

George J. Frebert (1929-2002) was a pilot and aviation enthusiast. He authored the book Delaware Aviation History. The collection contains both materials used in the preparation of Delaware Aviation History and other items that Frebert collected dealing with Delaware aviation, aviators and airports. Much of the material was copied from historical repositories, but Frebert also collected original materals and photos from other early aviators.

George Levitt (1925-), a DuPont Company chemist working at the Experimental Station, discovered sulfonylurea (SU) herbicides in 1976 after two decades of experimentation. This collection consists of six of Levitt's laboratory notebooks documenting milestones in herbicide discovery.

George Parshall (1929-2019) was an organometallic chemist who made notable contributions to homogeneous catalysis. He worked as a senior scientist at E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company for thirty-eight years. This small collection mainly consists of a three-volume autobiography that covers Parshall's life, from growing up during the Great Depression, World War II, education, marriage and family, and career with the DuPont Company.

George Washington Rains (1817-1898) was a United States Army and Confederate Army officer and proprietor in the Washington Iron Works. This war-date memorandum by Rains gives a full look at the successful Confederate crash program to develop reliable sources of munitions under wartime conditions and gives clues to the skills of the person who managed it.

George Whitelock (1780-1833) was a cabinetmaker and chair-maker in Wilmington, Delaware. This item is a bill for a coffin for Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817), a French political economist, writer, publisher, and public administrator.

George Y. Swickard (1906-1958) was a medical doctor involved in industrial medicine who worked with E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. During World War II, Swickard worked as a medical supervisor with the DuPont Company at various locations, including atomic research projects at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and at Hanford, Washington. This collection consists of certificates, newsletters, pamphlets, and souvenir programs amassed by Swickard, mostly in the course of his work for DuPont.

Gilbert P. Church (1910-1993) was a civil engineer and the field project manager for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company at the Hanford Site during the Manhattan Project. His papers relate to the construction by DuPont for the United States government of the Hanford Engineer Works plutonium plant near Pasco, Washington.

Gilpin, Van Trump & Montgomery, Inc. provided insurance sales and service to property owners. The business was established in 1865 in Wilmington, Delaware, by businessman James Woolley (1818-1886). By the early-to-mid twentieth century, the company specialized in real estate sales and service, as well as mortgages, becoming Delaware's only full-service real estate organization. The records include minutes, corporate histories, publicity material, as well as information on company properties, and documents the company's rise from a small insurance company to a large, multi-service insurance, real estate, mortgage, and investment firm.

In 1811, Girard's Bank was established in the former First Bank of the United States headquarters in order to maintain adequate banking facilities for Philadelphia. This manuscript lists all of the stockholders of the Girard Bank as of October 22, 1839.

Gordon Derby Patterson (1897-1982) was a chemist who spent nearly forty years with the Central Research Department (formerly the Chemical Department) at the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont Company. In addition to his early work in pigments and rayon, Patterson directed research in high-energy radiation generators, radioactive tracer techniques, nuclear magnetic resonance, electron microscopy, and absorption spectroscopy. His papers provide extensive documentation for these projects, giving particular emphasis on ideas and suggestions for possible areas of exploration. In addition, there are administrative records, including outlines for research directors and the Steering Committee reviewing the status of current and proposed projects, as well as technical reference materials, such as summary reports, scientific papers, and literature reviews.

Gordon M. Kline (1903-1996) was highly involved in the plastics industry, beginning in its infancy. He worked in the plastics section of the National Bureau of Standards, editor of Modern Plastics, and with the U.S. government on preservation of significant historical items. The papers document his professional career with the National Bureau of Standards, along with material describing his work with the Society of the Plastics Industry, the American Society for Testing Materials, and the International Standards Organization.

Grace S. Stoermer (1886-1961) was Assistant Vice President of Bank of America and a civic leader in the city of Los Angeles. This small collection of materials from Stoermer's career as a banking executive in southern California in the early twentieth century includes photographs, magazine articles, and ephemera.

The Granite Manufacturing Company of Maryland was a cotton factory on the Patapsco River. This collection contains a minute book of the company that covers 1844 to 1861.

This diary's author is not given; however, many details indicate that the writer is likely Thomas R. Robinson (1889-1972), a thirty-two-year-old farmer mainly working as a coal miner, lumberman, and railroad worker. This item is a manuscript handwritten diary. The entries are dated February 20, 1922, through April 9, 1923; these include the weather, who the author worked beside each day, his duties and responsibilities, and other tasks he took upon himself to fulfill. This item will be of significant interest to labor historians wanting a view of daily life from the worker's point of view.

Greenville Center, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware on August 3, 1960 for the purpose of developing a shopping center at the northeast corner of the intersection of Buck Road and Kennett Pike in Greenville, Delaware. The records of Greenville Center, Inc. consist of an assortment of records from two sources--those of Greenville Center itself, kept by stockholder Arthur McGeorge, and a smaller portion from Peter H. Greeley of the Greenville Manor Homeowners' Association. They describe the mechanics and difficulties of building and operating a small but upscale suburban shopping center and restaurant.

Greta Barksdale Brown (1891-1965) was a descendant of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) who founded the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company with his son Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834) in 1802. The E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. Greta Barksdale Brown was the daughter of Ethel du Pont (1857-1934) and Hamilton M. Barksdale (1861-1918), and the wife of (Frank) Donaldson Brown (1885-1965). The collection consists of about a hundred hand-drawn nineteenth century embroidery patterns that she inherited from female family members.

The Grubb family were ironmasters in Lancaster, York, and Dauphin Counties, Pennsylvania, for a period of over 150 years. The records include account books and letters relating to the family's various iron enterprises, including the Codorus, Mananda, Mount Hope, Mount Vernon, and Henry Clay.

Guy B. Taylor (1888-1972) worked at the DuPont Company, where he specialized in the oxidation of ammonia, the method of contact catalysis, and the synthesis of acetylene. His fragmentary papers document his career as a research chemist and include an autobiographical notebook that chronicles his life from childhood to retirement, Princeton dissertation on the dissociation of mercuric oxide, technical papers, patents, and papers from employment at DuPont's Experimental Station.

Guyencourt Nurseries, Inc. was a Delaware landscape nurser set up by three young horticulturists, William E. and Mary N.R. Phelps and G. Guy Nearing, in 1929. This small group of papers traces six years of depression-era activities by a small Delaware land-scape nursery.

H. Rodney Sharp (1880-1968) was a historic preservationist and husband of Isabella du Pont Sharp (1882-1946), a descendent of the founders of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. The collection contains typed transcripts of letters written by Sharp while the Sharp family, friends, and children's nurses traveled around the world.

Alfred Victor du Pont (1798-1856), son of Sophie Madeleine Dalmas (1775-1828) and Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834), the founder of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. He joined the company in 1818, after an explosion that killed thirty-three people. The maps in this collection depict the Hagley yard based on an 1834 survey done by du Pont.

The Hanford Engineer Works in Hanford, Washington, was constructed between 1943 and 1945 to create the plutonium 239 and uranium 235 used in the atomic weapons needed for World War II. Sponsored by the Army Corps of Engineers, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company acted as the prime contractor. This collection consists of two items: a memorandum and an organizational chart from the Construction Division of the Hanford Engineer Works.

Hardy Jefferson Bowen (1913-2003) was an engineer and scientist. He was founder and president of Industrial Models Inc., a company which built scale models as an aid in the construction of oil refineries and chemical plants. This small collection of his papers primarily consist of materials documenting his modelmaking business.

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.

Harry F. Brown (1886-1980) was an electrical engineer and his entire career was devoted to railroad electrification. The collections consists of materials collected by Brown relating to American railroads outside of New England and primarily includes engineering reports and memoranda relating to railroad electrification and electric locomotives and cars.

Harry F. Brown (1886-1980) was an electrical engineer, and his entire career was devoted to railroad electrification. The collection consists of personal letters received by Brown, primarily from his father, Harry B. Brown, secretary of the McLagon Foundry Company in New Haven, his mother, his sister Grace, and his uncle Charles S. Brown, professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University.

Harry J. Haon II (1901-1989) and his son Harry J. Haon III (1934-2013) were chemists and lifetime employees of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, and both came to specialize in sales and marketing. The Harry J. Haon family papers are a collection of correspondence, meeting notes/minutes, drawings/maps, journal articles, DuPont publications, papers expressing once classified information about DuPont products, as well as teaching materials for employees who were novice marketing managers, sales personnel and employees in leadership positions. The collection is composed of two series consisting of the papers of Harry J. Haon, II and Harry J. Haon, III. The careers in DuPont of both Haons are well documented.

Harry Lobe Straus (1896-1949) was an early computer engineer and developer of totalisator or "tote board," an electronic system that printed and issued betting tickets at racetracks, automatically computed the bets and odds, and displayed them on a large board. This collection is a small group of papers preserved by his personal secretary, Christine Behm Nunus (1906-1998). It includes financial statements, business letters, estate papers, and items relating to Straus's biography, "Win. Place. Show."

Harvey Bounds (1893-1982) was the unofficial historian for Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company. The Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company manufactured, bleached, dyed, and finished a variety of cotton-made goods along the Brandywine River in Wilmington, Delaware. This collection is comprised of four reports Bounds collected regarding the history of the company.

Thomas William Harvey (1795-1854) was an important inventor in the arts of metalworking and metallurgy. The Harvey family papers primarily relate to Thomas William Harvey and his magnetic experiments. It also includes a biography written by his great-grandson Thomas W. Harvey (1884-1965), articles of association of the Harvey Galvanic Company, and two account books of the Harvey Electro Magnetic Company.

Thomas William Harvey (1795-1854) and his son, Hayward Augustus Harvey (1824-1893), were two important inventors in the arts of metalworking and metallurgy. The Harvey Steel Company constructed a furnace for making file and tool steel in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1887. In 1889, the company erected a much larger plant near Brills Station in Newark, and expanded it into the treating of armor plate. Thomas W. Harvey is represented in this collection by a selection of documents covering his business career. These include deeds to family property. There are small amounts of correspondence regarding his inventions and the patent laws, including an "Essay upon Iron," affidavits regarding his screw machine, and sketches for several inventions. The papers of Hayward Augustus Harvey include copies of patents and drawings of his various inventions and documents arising from patent litigation. However, the bulk of papers concern the Harvey Steel companies and the Harvey process.