The Allied Kid Company was a major manufacturer of kid leather and suede; it was one of the most important specialty leather firms in Wilmington. The records are a miscellaneous collection of Allied Kid Company materials preserved by Alexander Ulin of the Specialty Division of the company in Wilmington. The bulk of the records consist of laboratory and production notebooks giving chemical formulae and instructions for tanning and dyeing batches of hides, including calfskin, goatskin, and suede.

Amalgamated Leather Companies, Inc. manufactured black and colored glazed kid and other classes of leather used largely in making shoes in the early to mid-twentieth century. This collection consists of four photographs of employees at various events, and one factory exterior. There is also a color label.

The leather manufacturing firm of J.E. Rhoads & Sons grew out of an eighteenth-century tanning operation on the Rhoads family homestead in Marple, Chester County (now Delaware County), Pa. Records cover the entire history of the firm from the 1720s through the 1960s. There is also substantial information on trade organizations in the leather industry and on members of the Rhoads family.

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.

Theophilus Miles Smith (1757-1850) was a Connecticut shoemaker and leather worker. The ledger is a record of Smith's careers as a shoemaker and leatherworker and other business endeavors selling deer skin, calf skin, pig skin, veal, packaged pork, working the docks, slaughtering hogs, and packaging hay.