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.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company that began manufacturing gunpowder in 1802, and is commonly known as the DuPont Company. In 1941, the Martinsville Plant opened in Martinsville, Virginia, as DuPont's second nylon hosiery manufacturing plant. This small collection consists primarily of aerial and exterior photographs of the Martinsville Plant from the factory's construction in 1940 to 1996, two years before its closing.

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.

John R. McGrath (1923-2002) was a patent attorney who worked for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company for most of his career. McGrath worked primarily on nylon and its products. This collection consists of a notebook McGrath assembled and titled "Collection of Nylon Art," containing all of the nylon patents of the DuPont Company that he could find.

Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) was a French political economist, writer, publisher, and public administrator. In 1800, accompanied by his sons, Victor Marie du Pont (1767-1827) and Eleuthère Irénée "E.I." du Pont (1771-1834), he arrived in America. This item is a letter to Jean-Barthélemy Lecouteaulx de Canteleu (1746-1818) concerning a newly invented brocade loom.

The Textile Machine Works began as a braiding machines repair and replacement company for German imported equipment, but they began building their own braiding machines in late 1892. The Textile Machine Works was founded by Henry Janssen (1866-1948) and Ferdinand Thun (1866-1949) on July 5, 1892, in Reading, Pennsylvania. This collection includes administrative and financial records of the parent company and major subsidiaries from 1900 to 1968. There is additional material relating to employee relations and the establishment and operation of the Wyomissing Polytechnic Institute.

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.