As I write this, the First State is in the throes of its usual early spring weather whiplash. You know that time of year when Mother Nature just can't seem to make up her mind? The list includes first spring, second winter, false second spring, third winter, first false summer, actual spring, interrupted by flood and mud seasons! While our ancestors endured similar weather shocks, springtime in the 19th century brought on another tradition many of us have wisely abandoned: deep spring cleaning.

This week's Hagley Vault post comes from our Lukens Steel Company photographs (Accession 1972.360) collection and shows the company's process for heat treatment of steel discs around the year 1950.

The Lukens Steel Company was a medium-sized, non-integrated steel company and one of the top three producers of steel plates in the nation. It was founded in Coatesville, Pennsylvania in 1810 and controlled by members of the Pennock, Lukens and Huston families in direct succession for over 180 years; the company is noted for being the first industrial company in the United States led by a woman, Rebecca Lukens (1794-1854).

Black and white photo of a large group of men and women with office equipment and paperwork.

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.

An illustration depicts the Wonder Bakery building at the Chicago World's Fair, with a crowd of people, "Wonder Bakery" signage, and three balloons advertising "Wonder Bread".

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.

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