The Hagley Vault

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

May 26, 2025

Hagley Library is closed this Monday in observance of Memorial Day. In observance of the holiday, we’re sharing this May 26, 1944 Memorial Day issue of Lukens Plate, a newsletter of the Lukens Steel Company, from our Lukens Steel Company newsletters (Accession 2020.209) collection.


First established in 1793, the company is the oldest iron mill in commission in the United States; one of the few successful survivors of the many nineteenth-century iron works that once dotted southeastern Pennsylvania. What began as a small iron works and nail factory just outside Coatesville, Pennsylvania grew to become a medium-sized producer of specialty steel products and one of the top three producers of steel plate in the country. 

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

Monday, May 26, 2025
Hagley Library is closed this Monday in observance of Memorial Day ...
Hagley Library is closed this Monday in observance of Memorial Day. In observance of the holiday, we’re sharing this May 26, 1944 Memorial Day issue of Lukens Plate, a newsletter of the Lukens Steel Company, from our Lukens Steel Company newsletters (Accession 2020.209) collection. First established in 1793, the company is the oldest iron mill in...
Cover of a 1978 issue of DuPont Magazine showcasing sportswear and denim fashion.
Monday, May 19, 2025
We're celebrating a stroke of in'jean'ious in this history of invention this week ...
We're celebrating a stroke of in'jean'ious in the history of invention this week. On May 20, 1873, U.S. patent no.139,121 was issued to Jacob W. Davis, a tailor from Reno, Nevada. The patent gave Davis and his business partner, Levi Strauss, a fabric supplier from California who paid Davis's patent filing fees, exclusive rights to a rivet process...
A black and white photograph of a group of people boarding a bus.
Monday, May 12, 2025
Here's to making falling asleep on the bus look classy.
Here's to making falling asleep on the bus look classy. This ca. 1930s photograph of the inaugural run of the New York City to Chicago sleeping coach operated by the Great Lakes Stages company is from Hagley Library's collection of Chamber of Commerce of the United States photographs and audiovisual materials (Accession 1993.230). The Chamber of...
Black and white image of a woman holding a shovel in a greenhouse conservatory
Monday, May 5, 2025
Spring weather means wonderful things for the Hagley Museum and Library grounds ...
Spring weather means wonderful things for the Hagley Museum and Library grounds, so this week's post is for all the gardeners, grounds crew, and green thumbs here at Hagley. This ca. 1880s glass negative shows a woman, likely to be Elise Wigfall du Pont  (1849-1919), the wife of Francis Gurney du Pont (1850-1904) wielding a shovel in a greenhouse...
Sepia toned aerial photograph of the Empire State Building.
Monday, April 28, 2025
Some famous architecture is celebrating an anniversary this week ...
Some famous architecture is celebrating an anniversary this week. The lights went on for the first time at the Empire State Building on May 1, 1931 when President Hoover pressed a button to electrify the building as part of its dedication ceremony. The 102-story building, which had begun construction on January 1930, was the first skyscraper to...
Advertisement depicting a family and pets in silhouette, engaged in a chaotic chase after a rat
Monday, April 21, 2025
This week's visitor to the Hagley Vault is the E.S. Wells Medical Company ...
This week's visitor to the Hagley Vault is the E.S. Wells Medical Company, which produced this ca. 1890 advertising card for it's "Rough on Rats" pesticide. The New Jersey firm manufactured a strange combination of products: medicines for the general public, as well as rat poison. The company's founder, Ephraim S. Wells (1841-1913) began his...
A booklet cover showcasing various government buildings, titled "THE STORY OF TAXES"
Monday, April 14, 2025
Still dawdling over those W-2s? 
Still dawdling over those W-2s? Need a reminder to dig up those 1099s? Tuesday's tax deadline is the inspiration for this week's Hagley Vault post.  Published by E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company in 1957, The Story of Taxes provided a brief, business-friendly overview of the history of taxation worldwide, along with the current state of (and...
Advertising card for Egyptian Tenexine glue manufactured by the Tenexine Company of Boston, Massachusetts. Illustration shows a child gluing mother's skirts to the floor while parents argue, and is captioned 'with a bottle of Tenexine in the house, divorc
Monday, April 7, 2025
Marital ... well, something short of bliss, at just 0.25 cents a bottle.
Marital ... well, something short of bliss, at just 0.25 cents a bottle. This trade card was produced by the Tenexine Company, a Boston company that was founded in 1880 by Charles H. Brown. The company promised on the back of the card that its Egyptian Te-Nex-Ine glue was "the most powerful adhesive known", but it was not quite strong enough to...
The scene shows a damaged locomotive, with parts of the engine scattered and broken.
Monday, March 31, 2025
This week's Hagley Vault post documents a train wreck that occurred in February 1917 ...
This week's Hagley Vault post documents a train wreck that occurred in February 1917 in Mount Union, Pennsylvania. The accident occurred when the locomotive shown in this photograph, engine No. 614 carrying a freight train of coal cars, collided with the sleeper car of the Mercantile Express No. 6 passenger train. The impact killed all twenty-one...
Cover of a catalog advertising Ciné-Kodak cameras, featuring a group of people in a home, gathered around a projector, watching a home movie.
Monday, March 24, 2025
This week will mark the March 22, 1895 anniversary of the Lumière brothers' Paris premiere of Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory ...
This week will mark the March 22, 1895 anniversary of the Lumière brothers' Paris premiere of Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, a short film screened for a ten members of the Society for the Development of the National Industry. What the film may have lacked in plot development was made up for by being one of the world's first motion pictures....
A black and white photograph depicts a group of people celebrating St. Patrick's Day, with a man holding a cake.
Monday, March 17, 2025
Happy Saint Patrick's Day from your friends at Philco Corporation ...
Happy Saint Patrick's Day from your friends at Philco Corporation's Department 43-506 (and Hagley too, of course)! This image of employee Danny Dugan and his coworkers celebrating the holiday was published in an April 1952 issue of Philco News, the monthly employee newsletter of the Philco Corporation, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania firm that was...
An advertisement for Graybar Vacuum Cleaners, featuring a woman using a vacuum cleaner in a living room. The image promotes the vacuum cleaner as a sign of spring.
Monday, March 10, 2025
​Signs of Spring abound on the grounds of Hagley Museum & Library today ...
Signs of Spring abound on the grounds of Hagley Museum & Library today. So this week, we're bringing them online as well with this 1926 advertisement for Graybar Electric Company vacuum cleaners. The Graybar Electric Company, a merchandiser of electrical equipment and household appliances, was founded in 1926 out of a supply division of the ...
Black and white image of a woman in a machine shop, working at a large lathe machine.
Monday, March 3, 2025
This image of a worker at the Pennsylvania Railroad's car shops ...
This image of a worker at the Pennsylvania Railroad's car shops at Huntingdon, Pennsylvania was taken 106 years ago this week, on March 3, 1919. The woman in this image is using a lathe to machine a railroad car wheel and axle. The Pennsylvania Railroad was chartered in 1846 to complete an all-railroad network across the state. In 1857, the...
Monday, February 24, 2025
Let's go on a holiday in Philadelphia this week.
Let's go on a holiday in Philadelphia this week. This ca. 1960 film was produced by the city's Board of Trade and Conventions to promote tourism. It follows the fictional Daley family as they plan their vacation and sightsee Philadelphia's historical attractions, shopping, and sports and cultural events. The film, narrated by Dick Clark, also...
A vintage postcard illustration depicts two individuals on large-wheeled bicycles, likely penny-farthings, in a landscape with icicles and trees.
Monday, February 17, 2025
We're pedaling away from a Valentine's Day weekend today on our Columbia Valentine bicycles
We're pedaling away from a Valentine's Day weekend today on our Columbia Valentine bicycles. This ca. 1888 trade card, printed by G.H. Buek & Co., advertised bicycles sold by the Pope Manufacturing Company, a Boston-based manufacturer of air pistols, cigarette rolling machines, bicycles, motorcycles, automobiles, and assorted other mechanical...
Eagle, standing on American flag, holding feathers (or a scalp) in his beak of a rooster labeled 'se
Monday, February 10, 2025
Patriotic ephemera and decorative arts were a popular consumer item during the American Civil War ...
Patriotic ephemera and decorative arts were a popular consumer item during the American Civil War; this illustration comes from a ca. 1863 envelope found in Hagley Library's collection of Civil War patriotic envelopes (Accession 1969.064). This collection has was digitized in conjunction with Hagley’s exhibit, An Oath of Allegiance to the Republic...

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