Staying local this Memorial Day Weekend? 

Enjoy your staycation at Hagley! We've got a LOT going on! From cannon firings to fishing to the immersive Nation of Inventors exhibition, everyone in the family will discover something amazing.

 

Hagley Museum and Library invites you to buckle up for pure 1970s adrenaline and join us for a screening of two rare automotive documentaries, back-to-back on the big screen.

Freewheelin' plunges you into the 1975 Van-In in Bowling Green, Kentucky, a counterculture carnival of custom vans, wild events, and live music from the JTS Band. Penned by Brock Yates, the screenwriter behind Cannonball Run, this film takes you inside the most outrageous rigs of the era to hear their stories from the vanners themselves.

To help celebrate 250 years of American history, Hagley invites you to come to the library and preserve your own history! Bring photos, documents, letters, and other memories. Our staff will use our professional digitization equipment to create digital copies for your personal safekeeping. If you choose, you may share copies with Hagley for preservation in the Hagley Digital Archives.

Additional staff will be on hand to provide preservation advice and opportunities to see our library collection spaces.

Step into the heart of history! Experience 25 rare and extraordinary artifacts—from personal journals and pamphlets to tintypes and telegrams—that bring to life 250 years of courage, struggle, and triumph in the pursuit of justice and equality. Join us on a guided journey to uncover the untold stories of local and national figures whose determination shaped our country’s destiny. Reserve your seat for an inspiring trip through America’s remarkable legacy!

$10 for Hagley Members and $20 for Non-Members.

Hand-made computer game planning on graph paper featuring the Starship Enterprise

It's all fun and (video) games at the Hagley Vault today thanks to the contributions of RCA engineer Joe Weisbecker (1932-1990). Weisbecker invented an 8-bit microcomputer architecture that would serve as the foundation of RCA’s future microprocessor business. 

During the 1970s, he contributed to the development of RCA’s programmable video game and educational systems: FRED, STUDIO II, STUDIO III, and STUDIO IV, and Microtutor. This ca. 1972 image shows a page from his computer game planning papers for a Star Trek themed game for the FRED system.

Dr. Wallace H. Carothers with neoprene

April 27th marks the birthdate of the chemist Wallace Hume Carothers, credited with leading the invention of Neoprene artificial rubber and Nylon synthetic fiber. Carothers worked as a chemist in E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company's Fundamental Research Program from 1928 until his death in 1937.

Carothers' work at the DuPont Experimental Station focused on polymerization and the ways in which polymers structurally analogous to cellulose and silk could be prepared. In early 1930 the chemists in Carothers' laboratory produced neoprene, the first laboratory-synthesized fiber and first commercially successful synthetic rubber. This ca. 1932 photograph from Hagley Library's DuPont Company Product Information photographs (Accession 1972.341) shows Carothers demonstrating the properties of neoprene. Nylon, the first synthetic polymer fibre to be spun from a melt, was developed in 1934.  

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