Finding Aids

Better Living magazine was an E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (DuPont Company) employee magazine that features articles that highlight how the DuPont Company improved the lives of its employees and the American standards of living. Researchers can expect to find original photographs, proofs, contact sheets, and negatives taken for use in the Better Living magazine. The images included are both the ones used and unused in the publication and date from 1946 to 1972.

The External Affairs Department was responsible for all company advertising, publicity, and public affairs for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont Company. The collection consists of departmental photograph reference files covering a wide array of the company's activities. It is a comprehensive resource for images showing manufacturing processes, DuPont Company industrial plants and office buildings, aerials and exteriors, employee group and individual executive portraits, and product shots. The bulk of the images date from the 1940s through the 1990s.

In 1952, the DuPont Company created the Product Information section within the Public Relations department. Its function was to produce news releases with photographs about DuPont and its products for indirect publicity and advertising purposes. This collection contains photographs of DuPont Company corporate events and proceedings, product trade shows and fairs, development and manufacturing processes, and the employees and facilities where the products were created. Most of the photographs were taken from the 1930s through the 1950s.

In the twenty-first century, the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, better known as the DuPont Company focused on science with a diverse set of interests and products. It operates in more than ninty countries with corporate headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, and employs more than 60,000 people worldwide, including 10,000 scientists and engineers. This is a collection of websites owned by or affiliated with the DuPont Company, between 2011 and present. Complete web archive is available at https://archive-it.org/collections/2606.

MCI Communications Corporation (MCI) was a large telecommunications company. It was organized in October 1963 in Joliet, Illinois, by John D. (Jack) Goeken (1930-2010), as Microwave Communications, Inc. Goeken and his partners were planning to provide point-to-point private line microwave communications between Chicago and St. Louis to small businesses. This large collection documents the activities of the MCI Communications Corporation and its subsidiaries as well as the development of a competitive telecommunications industry in the United States and worldwide. The materials focus on MCI corporate life, public relations, technical operations, and sales and marketing activities. A vast amount of videotapes makes up a significant portion of the MCI collection, however, there are also photographs, slides, digital files, and audio cassette tapes.

The RCA News and Information Department served a public affairs role for RCA corporate headquarters at Rockefeller Center in New York City. The collection contains photographs and negatives created or commissioned by RCA that document much of RCA’s history and activities. Many of the photographs were organized by the News and Information Department into subjects that cover the history of radio, television, communications, and consumer electronics, with a particular emphasis on RCA”s role in that history. Additional photographs are grouped by RCA division and document their specific achievements, with the RCA laboratories being especially prominent. This collection also contains a large number of photographic negatives that were taken by the public relations firm, Carl Byoir & Associates, which showcase many of RCA’s products, events, and facilities.