Sears began in 1886 when Richard Warren Sears started a mail order watch business. By 1887, he had partnered with Alvah Curtis Roebuck, a watch repairman, to form Sears and Roebuck. Their first mail order catalog was issued in 1888. Over the years, the Sears “Big Book” catalogs grew to be over 1,000 pages, selling everything from tools to appliances to home goods, farm equipment, and even mail order houses.

As we head into fall (and hopefully cooler weather), perhaps you're thinking of adding a few new items to your wardrobe. If we were living in 1970, you could take a hint from the following DuPont film and consider one of the fall-inspired designs made from Qiana fabric:

Welcome back to another Hagley Staff Favorites article! Every quarter, we share stories from our collections staff, giving you the opportunity to hear from the experts, the people who first lay hands on our archives and objects, about the items that made a mark. Maybe you'll find something new to investigate.

This quarter's Staff Favorites interviewee is Doug McQuirter, Reference Archivist at the Hagley Library, speaking about the David Sarnoff Library collections.

In the years after World War II, as women were being pushed from wartime jobs for returning soldiers, government and business leaders—and women themselves—saw small business ownership as a viable economic solution. In just five years, US women owned nearly a million of the nation’s businesses.

Street scene of a protest with women wearing signs reading "Strike Now - Live Later" and "We all must change."

This week's Hagley Vault post is sourced from our collection of National Association of Manufacturers photographs and audiovisual materials (Accession 1973.418) and documents a November 1962 protest against the trade association.

In the years after World War II, NAM encouraged its membership to participate in the growing military-industrial complex through initiatives like the National Defense Committee. By the 1960s, as public opposition to the Vietnam War and Cold War interventionism grew, anti-war protesters like the ones shown in this photograph criticized this position, and encouraged boycotts of major manufacturers with substantial public contracts with the Department of Defense, like General Electric, DuPont, Kodak, Eveready, Pyrex, and others.

Black and white photograph of a group of workers posed inside a large dredge dipper.

There's always room for one more at the Hagley Vault! This week, we're cozying up with workers inside a 5 cu. yard dipper being used on one of the big dipper dredges during the construction of the Panama Canal.

This photograph, taken between 1904 and 1914, is part of Hagley Library's collection of Chamber of Commerce of the United States photographs and audiovisual materials (Accession 1993.230). The Chamber of Commerce of the United States is the world’s largest business organization, representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions. Chamber members range from small businesses and local chambers to leading industry associations and large corporations.

The Chamber traces its origins to an April 22, 1912, conference of commercial and trade organizations called by President William Howard Taft. The goal was to form a national group to advise the government on issues facing industry and business throughout the country.​​

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