Wednesday is is Tax Day, so we've invited some special guests to the Hagley Vault this week to give us a hand.

This 1955 photograph shows the 61 men and women chosen to represent the DuPont company's Tax, Legal, Payroll, Tabulating, Statistical, and General Ledger Departments, as well as the paperwork and office equipment used to manage the company's annual taxes and take care of compiling and directing individual employee withholding for the company's more than 117,000 workers.

This photograph is part of Hagley Library's DuPont Company product information collection collection (Accession 1972.341). The product information section was a division of the company's Public Relations Department that was organized in 1952. Its main directive was to create news releases accompanied by photographs that could be sent to trade journals and newspapers to create inexpensive publicity and indirect advertising for DuPont.

This week's Hagley Vault post is a real (sugar) rush, as it's in recognition of the invention of Hostess Twinkies snack cakes, created on April 6, 1930 by James A. Dewar, plant manager at Continental Baking Company, in Chicago, Illinois. 

Dewar created the confection while looking for an inexpensive product to meet the economic needs of consumers during the Great Depression, and noted that that the baking pans used to make strawberry sponge cakes lay idle during months when strawberries were out of season.

This image comes from the back cover of "The Wonder Book of Good Meals", a pamphlet produced by the Continental Baking Company around 1932 to capitalize on the company's participation in Chicago's Century of Progress International Exposition. The pamphlet contained recipes for sandwiches, appetizers, desserts, and other delights that could be made with one of the company's other iconic products; Wonder Bread.

Everything is just fine and candy this week as we hop along to the Easter holiday. The two peeps in a pod joining us for an Easter egg hunt in this ca. 1932 photograph are Junius and Paulina Dean, the children of Junius Simpson Dean (1896-1978) and Paulina du Pont Dean (1903-1964).

Paulina was the niece of Pierre Samuel "P.S." du Pont (1870-1954), who assembled the P.S. du Pont photographs (Accession 1969.002) collection that contains this item. This large collection of over 6,000 items documents P.S. du Pont's many interests as well as the many members of the du Pont family.

The series containing this photograph is the 'Individuals and families' series, which includes photographs and glass negatives featuring P.S. du Pont, his family and extended family, as well as friends and associates. 

Hello, Spring! It may be off to a chilly start, but spring is here and blooms are sure to follow. We're getting the jump on those early spring flowers this week with a page from the Henry F. Michell Company's Fall 1945 catalog.

The still-operating and still family-owned horticultural business was founded in Philadelphia in 1890 by Swedish immigrants, the brothers Henry and Frederick J. Michell. 

The catalog is part of Hagley Library's collection of trade catalogs. You can view it, as well as other publications from the Henry F. Michell Company, online in our Digital Archives by clicking here.