The Hagley Vault

Selections from Hagley Museum and Library's archives and published collections on the history of American business, technology, and innovation.

Archive

For posts prior to October 2020, visit the Hagley Vault on Tumblr.

Photograph of a large group of men in hats waiting at a train station in East Pittsburg
This 1908 photograph shows employees of the Westinghouse Machine Company ...
This 1908 photograph shows employees of the Westinghouse Machine Company at East Pittsburg station, waiting for their evening train. The photograph is part of Hagley Library's Westinghouse Machine Company album (Accession 1983.247), which reported that it required six trains to accommodate their traffic. The Westinghouse Machine Company was…
Man operating a mine haulage train
In 1854, the Westmoreland Coal Company began mining coal ...
In 1854, the Westmoreland Coal Company began mining coal in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, primarily for sale to steelmakers, railroads, and coal gasification plants. Within a few decades, the company was providing coal to fifty-eight gasworks along the east coast. Today, the company is one of the coal industry’s oldest independent companies.…
View of Solon Plant with employees and executives on the site of Harris Farm
This week's Hagley Vault is visiting Ohio to take a look at the Austin Powder Company's mills ...
This week's Hagley Vault is visiting Ohio to take a look at the Austin Powder Company's mills under construction in Glenwillow, Cuyahoga County, on the southern end of Solon, Ohio. The company, now the oldest manufacturing enterprise in the Cleveland area, produces industrial explosives and detonators, as well as blasting services. But back when…
A man in an apron stands by a horse-drawn delivery wagon labeled "RAYNOR & BRO."
This week's Hagley Vault delivery comes with a side of old beef ...
This week's Hagley Vault delivery comes with a side of old beef; the reverse side of this photograph, taken on February 23, 1897, notes that Raynor had "reputation of being a fast talker and a short weigher". Raynor & Bro. was a butcher shop that operated out of a storefront at 4465 Frankford Ave. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the city's…
Arch Oboloer (center), NBC author, producer, and director, oversees falling tree sound effects using a real tree and real undergrowth for episode No. 262, 'An American is Born'.
The broadcasting industry has a major milestone to celebrate this week ..
The broadcasting industry has a major milestone to celebrate this week - September 9th marks the 100th anniversary of the formation of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) as a radio network. The broadcasting company was formed when the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T), which had been operating a collection or radio…
Cover of a 1954 issue of Lukens Life featuring majorettes and drum major of the Scott High School band
Summer vacation time is wrapping up for the year, and we're getting into the school spirit .. ...
Summer vacation time is wrapping up for the year, and we're getting into the school spirit with a back to school season issue of Lukens Life from September 1954. This issue's cover celebrated the "crowded football stadiums and snappy bands" of Scott High School with the school band's majorettes and drum major (also drum major of the Lukens band).…
Black and white photograph of a worker coating cast iron pipes with bitumen (Birmingham, Ala.)
This week's Hagley Vault is visiting an iron-works ...
This week's Hagley Vault is visiting an iron-works in Birmingham, Alabama, where a metalworker is coating cast-iron pipes with bitumen. Bitumen was, and still is, used to coat pipes intended for water and sewage lines as well as seawater intake and outflow pipes, as it is resistant to microbial activity, as well as corrosion from rust and other…
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines ....
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines .... Hagley Museum and Library has invited you to buckle up for pure 1970s adrenaline and the countdown is ON. On August 20th, the Library will be offering a screening of three rare automotive documentaries on the big screen. Freewheelin' plunges you into the 1975 Van-In in Bowling Green, Kentucky, a…
Workplace poster with the title 'Are you afraid of criticism?'. Additional text ncourages workers to embrace professional criticism.
This week's Hagley Vault comes from our digital gallery of workplace posters ...
This week's Hagley Vault comes from our digital gallery of workplace posters, which gathers a a variety of accessions and items Hagley Library's collections. Posters in this collection include material from Hagley Library's Mather & Company workplace posters (Accession 1994.319), Seagram Company World War II posters (Accession 2004.214),…
Fire insurance map showing a textile mill
Here's a Vault post for all the savvy shoppers out there ...
Here's a Vault post for all the savvy shoppers out there. The history of this 1932 fire insurance map for the Interlaken Mills textile factory dates back to 1835, when Zachariah Allen (1795-1882), owner of a woolen mill in Providence, Rhode Island, got fed up with his insurance premiums.Rates had been rising for all mill owners during the economic…
Illustration of various sea creatures arranged around a quote from The Ancient Mariner.
We're gonna need a bigger Vault ....
We're gonna need a bigger Vault ... Hagley is observing Shark Week today (and a happy, healthy one to those who celebrate). This 1895 illustration is from "Wonders of the Deep”, an pamphlet issued. by the New York City patent medicine firm of Scott and Bowne, founded by Samuel W. Bowne (1842–1910) and Alfred B. Scott (1946–1908). The pamphlet…
Aerial photograph of the Brown-Bonnell Iron Co., Youngstown, Ohio
Smokestacks are standing in for candles this week ...
Smokestacks are standing in for candles this week to note the 216th birthday of the co-founder and first president of the Brown-Bonnell Iron Company of Youngstown, Ohio, shown here in a ca. 1892 photograph. Joseph Henry Brown (1810-1886) was born on July 24, 1810 in Wales. Around 1820, his family emigrated to Franklin County, Pennsylvania, where…
Color photograph of a steelworker in protective clothing
One of the oldest trade associations in the United States has a home at Hagley Library
One of the oldest trade associations in the United States has a home at Hagley Library. Our American Iron and Steel Institute photographs and audiovisual materials (Accession: 1986.268) collection consists of photographs, research notes, audio, film, and video documenting the Institute and the history of the North American iron and steel industry…
Black and white photograph of a 1930s movie theatre on a commercial street.
Movie theater "dish nights" like the one advertised in this ca. 1936 photograph ...
Movie theater "dish nights" like the one advertised in this ca. 1936 photograph of Miller's State Theatre were once a popular sales incentive that originated in the Great Depression. While the film industry had boomed in the years before the stock market crash of October 1929, economic uncertainty meant that, by the end of 1933, ticket sales had…
Cover of the 1910 catalog for Lloyd's Jubilee Fireworks, featuring a child setting off a rocket.
Here's wishing everyone a safe and happy July 4th weekend ...
Here's wishing everyone a safe and happy July 4th weekend, especially those of you celebrating with home explosives.  This 1910 fireworks catalog was produced by the Lloyd Manufacturing Company of New York City. The company was one of a handful of fireworks manufacturers that was later caught up in a minor scandal over municipal graft when…
Summer is blockbuster movie season...
  Summer is blockbuster movie season, but that wasn't always the case. Prior to the invention of motion pictures, audiences might gather instead for a magic lantern show. Developed in the 17th century as an entertainment, magic lantern shows used a light source, which reflected off of a concave mirror, to direct light through a glass…