A black and white photograph depicts a group of men and women on the beach in 1920s swimwear

Hagley's staff may be at work today, but the Hagley Vault can go to the beach whenever it wants. This week, it's traveling to 1930 to join the employees of Joseph Bancroft & Sons' Eddystone Print Works Division in Wildwood, New Jersey.

The Eddystone Manufacturing Company began its corporate life in 1877, when William Simpson and John Halliday began operating a textile mill built at the Falls of Schuylkill near Philadelphia. The company, which manufactured dyed and printed cotton textiles, later relocated to Eddystone, Pennsylvania. 

The year before this photograph was taken, the company was bought by the Joseph Bancroft & Sons textile company; this photograph and many others are now part of Hagley Library's collection of Joseph Bancroft and Sons Company photographs (Accession 1969.025).

Sticker with black and red text reading "Come on / Let's go / Chicago / Roller Skate / Just for Fun / Skate your date at the Crescent Roller Rink / Cedar Lake, Indiana"

Here's a Hagley Vault post that's just for fun. This ca. 1940s sticker for the Crescent Roller Rink in Cedar Lake, Indiana was collected by Genevieve Pittner of Monroe, Michigan.

This is one of over 500 roller rink stickers collected by Pittner through exchanging stickers by mail with other collectors in groups like the Universal Roller Skating Sticker Exchange, a national network of sticker enthusiasts who traded stickers amongst each other. Her collection is now the Genevieve Pittner collection of roller skating rink stickers (Accession 2012.213).

Blue and white catalog cover with woman and a 1950 Buick. The text reads "Beauty on duty," highlighting the various roles of glass in the vehicle.

That's right, the Hagley Digital Archive is back up and the Hagley Vault is back on duty!

This beauty of an image is the cover to the pamphlet promoting a 1950 model Buick, and which advertises the aesthetic and practical features of the model's glass components.

The pamphlet is part of Hagley Library's collection of Z. Taylor Vinson collection of transportation ephemera (Accession 20100108.ZTV). For over sixty years, Zachary Taylor Vinson (1933-2009), a senior lawyer with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1993-1995 president of the Society of Automotive Historians, and 1995-2009 editor of Automotive History Review amassed a large and comprehensive collection of printed material documenting on the history transportation, particularly automobiles.

In 1957, there was sudden excitement and praise in the art world over a novel method of artmaking developed in France in the ‘20s. A retrospective of 50 works by Pablo Picasso (see right) was being held in Paris. This exhibit was distinct in that the works on display were made by a recently invented process known as gemmaux (pl.) or gemmail (sing.). 

In May 2025, Canada completed the first year of a planned 25-year, one-billion-dollar restoration project for the Quebec Bridge. This famous bridge is the longest cantilever truss span in the world, stretching 1,800 feet (549 meters) between its supports and 3,239 feet (987 meters) in total. Finished in 1917, it unfortunately stands as proof of the adage, “third time’s the charm.”

The 19th century represented a major time of transition in the United States. During this dawning of the Industrial Revolution, machines replaced human labor, opened new industries, and provided unique opportunities for growth. But the transition was gradual. Living, breathing machinery such as horses worked alongside steam engines and electrical generators for decades. Horses were critical to the development of America’s mixed industrial and agricultural economy as well as its bustling urban landscapes.

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