The Hagley Vault

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

May 5, 2025
Black and white image of a woman holding a shovel in a greenhouse conservatory

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 conservatory. 


Elise was born in Charleston, South Carolina to John Hume Simons (1818-1876) and Eliza Moore Wigfall (1823-1897). In 1871, Simons married Francis Gurney du Pont, the the youngest son of Alexis Irénée du Pont (1816-1857) and a grandson of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834), founder of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company.

Read more...

Archive

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

Postcard with a color illustration of a woman in Grand Army of the Republic dress. Text reads "A Daughter of the Regiment".
Friday, May 27, 2022
Hagley Library will be closed on Monday, May 30 ....
Hagley Library will be closed on Monday, May 30th for the Memorial Day holiday. Until then, we'll leave you with this 1911 postcard honoring the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a fraternal organization made up of veterans of the Civil War from the U.S. Union Army, Navy, and Marines. Founded in 1866, the GAR was influential in lobbying the U.S....
Thursday, May 26, 2022
Crisp, but oh so tender!
Crisp, but oh so tender! This 1953 commercial for Kix cereal is giving us the vim *and* the 83% energy (???) we need to get through our Thursday (we'll stick to the small goals & leave the jumping, leapfrog, tennis, etc. for the kids).  This advertisement is part of Hagley Library's collection of Cinecraft Productions films (Accession 2019.227...
Black and white photo of a number of women at work in a large switchboard office.
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Today's #WorkerWednesday post takes us inside the Hotel DuPont ...
Today's #WorkerWednesday post takes us inside the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware to join its switchboard operators at work. This photograph was taken in September 1948, and is part of Hagley Library's collection of E.I du Pont de Nemours & Co. Inc. Central Systems & Services Dept. records (Accession 1972.422). The Hotel du Pont...
Black and white photograph of a woman paying for parking at a parking meter.
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
On this date, May 24, in 1938 ....
On this date, May 24, in 1938, the U.S. Patent Office granted patent No. 2,118,318 to Carl C. McGee, a newspaper reporter and editor and founder of the city's Oklahoma News. The patent was the third of its kind - the first was issued in 1928, but inventor Roger W. Babson never pursued manufacturing his device. The 1938 patent, for a coin...
Black and white photograph of a musical pentet in a 1930s music studio. A can-shaped recording device has been emphasized with overdrawing.
Monday, May 23, 2022
I don't know about you, but I heard a man there pays folks money to sing into a can ...
I don't know about you, but I heard a man there pays folks money to sing into a can on #MusicMonday. This photograph shows the members of The Revelers, a recording group that had previously recorded as the the Shannon Four and the Shannon Quartet, prior to the addition of a fifth member. The group were active in radio, vaudeville, and as...
Black and white fashion photograph advertising 1960s era Ban-Lon swim trunks
Friday, May 20, 2022
It's going to be a hot one this weekend in our region ....
It's going to be a hot one this weekend in our region, so we're busting out the short shorts a little earlier than usual from our Joseph Bancroft and Sons Company, Miss America collection (Accession 1972.430). This 1961 photograph advertised Ban-Lon swim trunks by Catalina and was part of a series of fashion photographs commissioned by the company...
Illustration of an autumn landscape in the state of Maine.
Thursday, May 19, 2022
American botanist and artist Catharine Furbish was born on this date, May 19 ...
American botanist and artist Catharine Furbish (1934-1931) was born on this date, May 19, in 1834. Beginning in 1870, Furbish spent thirty-eight years traveling the state of Maine to collect, document, and classify its plant life. Furbish's travels took her thousands of miles through some of the state's most remote and inaccessible regions, and...
Black and white photograph of children lined up outside a trailer with a traveling museum exhbiit.
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
We're celebrating International Museum Day today with this photograph ....
We're celebrating International Museum Day today with this photograph of a touring exhibit from the Children's Museum of Washington, D.C. First established in 1977 by the International Council of Museums, International Museum Day celebrates the contribution of museums to their communities. This photograph, taken around 1945 by cinematographer,...
Advertising card featuring an illustration of dismayed looking cats surrounding a tin of rat poison.
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Today's #TradeCardTuesday comes courtesy of the E.S. Wells Medical Company ...
Today's #TradeCardTuesday comes courtesy of the E.S. Wells Medical Company. The 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) migrated from West Virginia, where he had apprenticed to a druggist, to New Jersey in 1862. There, he...
Fanciful illustration of woodland fairy creatures listening to a radio.
Monday, May 16, 2022
Once upon a time ....
Once upon a time, not all that long ago, the Temple Corporation created this charming little 1929 catalog to advertise its line of radio consoles. The company was established in Chicago in 1927, when it acquired the business and assets of the Chicago Signal Company's radio division. Alas, the manufacturer did not live happily ever after. The...
Advertisement for cold liver oil. Illustration of a man carrying a very large codfish on his back.
Friday, May 13, 2022
Thank cod, it's #FishFriday ...
Thank cod, it's #FishFriday! This image shows the back cover of Scott & Bowne's Wonders of the Deep, an 1895 pamphlet about fish created to advertise the company's branded cod liver oil. This illustration of a man with a fish on his back was a popularly recognized and often used icon for partners Alfred B. Scott and Samuel W. Bowne, who...
Motivational broadside for war workers, produced during World War 1
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
We worked a little harder this week to bring you a new digital collection ....
We worked a little harder this week to bring you a new digital collection. This broadside, produced by the United States' Department of Labor during World War I, is item ID 08233947 in our catalog. It is also one of twenty broadsides selected for inclusion in a new digital collection of World War I motivational posters from Hagley's Published...
Black and white photograph of a display case featuring corsets
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
The Centennial International Exhibition, the first major U.S. world's fair, opened #OTD ...
The Centennial International Exhibition, the first major U.S. world's fair, opened #OTD in 1876. Hosted in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, the fair celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of American independence. The Centennial Exhibition opened on May 10, 1876 and closed November 10th. Nearly ten million visitors attended the fair in that time....
Catalog advertising Nash Automobile's 1942 "Million Dollar Beauty" with a photograph of a woman and the front of the car.
Monday, May 9, 2022
Today's #MotorMonday post has us feeling like a million bucks ...
Today's #MotorMonday post has us feeling like a million bucks. This catalog, issued by the Nash Motors Company around 1942, advertised the company's Ambassador model, a luxury automobile that the company manufactured from 1927 until 1957. This model, however, was the last to be made before World War II, when Nash was forced to curtail production...
Hand colored glass slide showing a long stretch of railroad surrounded by forests and flowers.
Friday, May 6, 2022
It may be a rainy day out there today ....
It may be a rainy day out there today on Hagley's grounds, but it's always beautiful inside when you've got commercial photographer William H. Rau (1855-1920) keeping you company. This hand-colored lantern slide, titled "Hemlock Forest" was created around 1895 in or nearby Towanda, Pennsylvania. William H. Rau was born in Philadelphia in 1855. As...
Advertising card for Durham smoking tobacco by James R. Day. Illustration shows a rebus puzzle.
Thursday, May 5, 2022
You kids and your Wordle ...
You kids and your Wordle. Back in my day,  I tied an onion to my belt (which was the style at the time) and did my word puzzles off of trade cards for tobacco. Now where were we... oh, yeah. The trade card! This ca. 1875(?) advertising James R. Day's Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco was one of a series of rebus puzzle cards that were distributed to...

Pages