Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company began operation in 1831 as a cotton cloth manufacturer in Rockford, Delaware. After the Civil War, the company concentrated on finishing cotton cloth. "A Century of Fine Cloth, 1831-1931" is a typescript history of the first 100 years of the company, with emphasis on the personal life of the company's founder, Joseph Bancroft (1803-1874), and his immediate successors.

The Bancroft family owned and operated the Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company, a cotton cloth manufacturer in Rockford, Delaware, beginning in 1831. The volumes help document the activities of two generations of the Bancroft family in England and America and the operations and employees of two early Delaware Valley textile mills.

Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company began operation in 1831 as a cotton cloth manufacturer in Rockford, Delaware. After the Civil War, the company concentrated on finishing cotton cloth. The collection contains material related to the Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company, Eddystone Manufacturing Company, genealogical notes on the Bancroft-Wood family, and the Delaware postal system.

The Bancroft family owned and operated the Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company, a cotton cloth manufacturer in Rockford, Delaware, beginning in 1831. The records document the activities of two generations of the Bancroft family in England and America and consist primarily of account books from the various family businesses, including the Todmorden and Brandywine woolen mills and the Rockford cotton mill.

The Jenks family produced talented inventors over many generations. Between the 1820s and the 1870s the family businesses were the leading cotton textile machine builders in Pennsylvania. During the Civil War, the firm operated a rifle factory as part of the Union war effort. The collection consist of a series of fragments handed down in the Jenks family related to several of their business ventures.

The Bridesburg Machine Works of Alfred Jenks & Son were manufacturers of cotton and wool carding spinning and weaving machinery, shafting and millgearing. The lithograph shows the plant exterior, people in the street, and a delivery wagon carrying textile machinery. Vignettes of machines surround the main view.

Several early companies, established by members of the du Pont family, operated on the Brandywine Creek in proximity to the mills of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. These businesses included factories that produced tanned leather, woolen and cotton cloth, and yarns. The firms also owned properties that were used by, or sold to, other developers of mills in the region. This collection includes the papers of Du Pont, Bauduy & Company (1803-1815); Du Planty, McCall & Company (1813-1837); Brandywine Mill Seat Company (1798-1854); A. Cardon & Company (1824-1833); and Rockland Manufacturing Company (1825-1856).

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.

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.

Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company began operation in 1831 as a cotton cloth manufacturer in Rockford, Delaware. After the Civil War, the company concentrated on finishing cotton cloth. In later years it became famous for its Ban-lon artificial fiber but eventually withdrew from manufacturing in favor of licensing its processes and trademarks to other companies. The records consist of miscellaneous correspondence and reports, possibly from W. Ralph MacIntyre (1897-1984), president. The records include research reports and notebooks on dyeing, bleaching, printing, and finishing of fabrics.

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

Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company began operation in 1831 as a cotton cloth manufacturer in Rockford, Delaware. After the American Civil War, the company concentrated on finishing cotton cloth, purchasing the Kentmere Mills adjoining their original site in 1895 and a third plant for manufacturing at Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1910. The company acquired another textile firm, the Eddystone Manufacturing Company, in 1925. This collection comprises records from both the Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company and the Eddystone Manufacturing Company, along with records from several predecessors and subsidiaries. The Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company records trace the firm's history from 1831 through 1961, with the Managing Director's letter books, in particular, giving a very detailed picture of the company's operations. The records of the Eddystone Manufacturing Company and its predecessors are relatively complete and offer a good picture of a medium-sized textile firm that was typical of the mid-Atlantic states.

The Pennsylvania Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures and the Useful Arts was a membership organization of Philadelphia's political, mercantile, and manufacturing elite to promote the causes of domestic manufacturers, particularly textiles. The Pennsylvania Manufacturing Society accounts include a ledger of both the general and special accounts of the manufacturing fund. The bulk of the transactions are from the period of active operations, with the settlement of accounts taking place between 1790 and 1801.

The Phillips family were prominent Philadelphia merchants and manufacturers over four generations. The records consist of four volumes of merchant and importer William Phillips (1771-1845), a daybook from the textile firm of Lewis, Phillips & Co., and an unrelated receipt book of Philadelphia wine merchant Francis Coppinger, dating from 1794 to 1795.

Anthony C.F. Wallace (1923-2015) was an anthropology professor at the University of Pennsylvania between 1951 and 1988. The Eddystone Manufacturing Company operated a cotton prints factory in Eddystone, Pennsylvania. The company was founded, owned, and operated by the Simpson family until 1929. This small collection consists of student papers written for the course Anthropology 703 Cultural Change in the Industrial Revolution. The papers all focus on the history of the Eddystone Manufacturing Company or the Simpson family and were written in the spring of 1986.

The Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company operated cotton textile mills in Wilmington, Delaware, where they manufactured, bleached, dyed, and finished a variety of cotton-made goods. The Pusey & Jones Corporation were shipbuilders, founders, and machinists of Wilmington, Delaware, which later expanded into papermaking machinery manufacturing. This collection consists of eleven small notebooks from the two companies regarding their work.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) fully adopted federal grading standards for food and other agricultural products during the Second World War. In 1939, the Agricultural Marketing Service, a USDA agency, began administering commodity standardization, grading, and inspections of several programs, including cotton and tobacco. This small collection mostly includes USDA issued publications and reports regarding developments in cotton standards, specifications, and classification in the mid-twentieth century.

Victor Marie du Pont (1767-1827) was a French diplomat who later immigrated to the United States and established various trading companies before moving to Delaware. He was the eldest son of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817). The collection consists of correspondence, business and personal papers, and writings of Victor Marie du Pont and his wife, Gabrielle Joséphine (de la Fite de Pelleport) du Pont.