The Hagley Vault

Selections from Hagley Museum and Library's archives and published collections on the history of American business, technology, and innovation.

May 16, 2022
Fanciful illustration of woodland fairy creatures listening to a radio.

Once upon a time, not all that long ago, the Temple Corporation created this charming little 1929 catalog to advertise its line of radio consoles. The company was established in Chicago in 1927, when it acquired the business and assets of the Chicago Signal Company's radio division.


Alas, the manufacturer did not live happily ever after. The Chicago company, which had only just recently established a Canadian office in Toronto, went bankrupt in 1930 after the cataclysmic 1929 crash of the stock market that would fuel the Great Depression.


Despite efforts to market a table model console in 1931, the company ceased production by 1932 and vacated its headquarters on the southeast corner of West 64th Street and South Lavergne Avenue by 1933.

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Archive

For posts prior to October 2020, visit the Hagley Vault on Tumblr.

Fanciful illustration of woodland fairy creatures listening to a radio.
Monday, May 16, 2022
Once upon a time ....
Once upon a time, not all that long ago, the Temple Corporation created this charming little 1929 catalog to advertise its line of radio consoles. The company was established in Chicago in 1927, when it acquired the business and assets of the Chicago Signal Company's radio division. Alas, the manufacturer did not live happily ever after. The...
Advertisement for cold liver oil. Illustration of a man carrying a very large codfish on his back.
Friday, May 13, 2022
Thank cod, it's #FishFriday ...
Thank cod, it's #FishFriday! This image shows the back cover of Scott & Bowne's Wonders of the Deep, an 1895 pamphlet about fish created to advertise the company's branded cod liver oil. This illustration of a man with a fish on his back was a popularly recognized and often used icon for partners Alfred B. Scott and Samuel W. Bowne, who...
Motivational broadside for war workers, produced during World War 1
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
We worked a little harder this week to bring you a new digital collection ....
We worked a little harder this week to bring you a new digital collection. This broadside, produced by the United States' Department of Labor during World War I, is item ID 08233947 in our catalog. It is also one of twenty broadsides selected for inclusion in a new digital collection of World War I motivational posters from Hagley's Published...
Black and white photograph of a display case featuring corsets
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
The Centennial International Exhibition, the first major U.S. world's fair, opened #OTD ...
The Centennial International Exhibition, the first major U.S. world's fair, opened #OTD in 1876. Hosted in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, the fair celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of American independence. The Centennial Exhibition opened on May 10, 1876 and closed November 10th. Nearly ten million visitors attended the fair in that time....
Catalog advertising Nash Automobile's 1942 "Million Dollar Beauty" with a photograph of a woman and the front of the car.
Monday, May 9, 2022
Today's #MotorMonday post has us feeling like a million bucks ...
Today's #MotorMonday post has us feeling like a million bucks. This catalog, issued by the Nash Motors Company around 1942, advertised the company's Ambassador model, a luxury automobile that the company manufactured from 1927 until 1957. This model, however, was the last to be made before World War II, when Nash was forced to curtail production...
Hand colored glass slide showing a long stretch of railroad surrounded by forests and flowers.
Friday, May 6, 2022
It may be a rainy day out there today ....
It may be a rainy day out there today on Hagley's grounds, but it's always beautiful inside when you've got commercial photographer William H. Rau (1855-1920) keeping you company. This hand-colored lantern slide, titled "Hemlock Forest" was created around 1895 in or nearby Towanda, Pennsylvania. William H. Rau was born in Philadelphia in 1855. As...
Advertising card for Durham smoking tobacco by James R. Day. Illustration shows a rebus puzzle.
Thursday, May 5, 2022
You kids and your Wordle ...
You kids and your Wordle. Back in my day,  I tied an onion to my belt (which was the style at the time) and did my word puzzles off of trade cards for tobacco. Now where were we... oh, yeah. The trade card! This ca. 1875(?) advertising James R. Day's Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco was one of a series of rebus puzzle cards that were distributed to...
Cover of a catalog for Dinky Die Cast toys, showing Star Trek themed toys.
Wednesday, May 4, 2022
May the Fourth be with you!
May the Fourth be with you! I'm doing this right, yeah? This 1977 cover for Meccano Ltd.'s line of Dinky die cast toys is call number Trade Cat .M482 1977 in Hagley Library's collection of trade catalogs and pamphlets. You can view the catalog in full in our Digital Collection by clicking here, as well as over 1,800 other trade catalogs and...
Black and white photo. Two people posed behind a waist-high flowering plant. Home and yard in the background.
Tuesday, May 3, 2022
I know that it doesn't *look* like we're excited ....
I know that it doesn't look like we're excited for all these wonderful May flowers on Hagley's grounds, but trust me, we're ecstatic to see them! This undated (ca. 1935?) negative is part of Hagley Library's collection of Frank E. Schoonover negatives (Accession 2017.239). Schoonover, a prolific commercial illustrator and artist, was also an...
Illustration of a futuristic. aerodynamic concept car in red and chrome.
Monday, May 2, 2022
#MotorMonday brings you the cars of tomorrow today with this advertisement ...
#MotorMonday brings you the cars of tomorrow today with this advertisement featuring a futuristic concept car designed by Strother MacMinn (1918-1998). This is one of six photomechanical prints from the company’s “Cars of Tomorrow” series in Hagley Library’s collection of Strother MacMinn “Cars of Tomorrow” prints (Accession 1997.268). Strother...
Friday, April 29, 2022
Can you believe it's Arbor Day again already?
Can you believe it's Arbor Day again already? We've got quite a lot of material in our Digital Archive that we considered sharing, but despite the holiday being a tree-day affair, we've only got one day to post. So this year, we're going with this short video created by Cinecraft Productions for U.S. Forest Service's Wildfire Prevention Campaign...
Illustration of multiple colored, randomly arranged rectangles with the title 'Disorder'. One of the rectangles has a "?" on it.
Thursday, April 28, 2022
This ca. 1930 lantern slide was once used to illustrate ...
This ca. 1930 lantern slide was once used to illustrate the elements of the Munsell Color System, a method of color notation developed by Professor Albert H. Munsell (1858-1918) to describe and analyze color scientifically based on three attributes: hue, value, and chroma. The Council was founded on February 26, 1931 for the purpose of...
Black and white image of a scientist and scientific apparatus, surrounded by large foam and rubber shapes.
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Everyone likes shapes, right?
Everyone likes shapes, right? Things can get awful hard sometimes, so today's photo is all about nice shapes in soft, cushioned synthetic foam and rubber. The caption that accompanies this ca. 1952 image from our DuPont Company Product Information Collection (Accession 1972.371) reads: "The chemical being poured and the foam surrounding the...
Color photograph of a dirt path through a wooded landscape.
Monday, April 25, 2022
It's a perfect day for a walk here at Hagley ....
It's a perfect day for a walk here at Hagley. But we're on the clock today, so here's a digital stroll through the woods instead. This 1922 photograph shows Peirce's Park Path at Longwood Gardens. Peirce's Park was created by Joshua (1766-1851) and Samuel Peirce (1766-1838), who planted their collections of native and exotic trees on the land near...
Friday, April 22, 2022
We're observing Earth Day today with this video ...
We're observing Earth Day today with this video documenting a DuPont river survey conducted at the Cuyahoga River in Ohio around 1970, not long after the river infamously caught fire in June 1969. Though decades of industrial waste dumping had caused the river to burn over a dozen times in years prior, the coverage of the 1969 fire in Time...
Black and white photo of two women. One is spraying something from a bottle into the other's mouth.
Thursday, April 21, 2022
This December 19, 1950 1950 photograph ...
This December 19, 1950 photograph is a promotional image for the DuPont Company's Cavalcade of America program, and shows DuPont Chorus members Pearl Rose and Jean Kay presumably preparing for show no. 679; 'The Du Pont Chorus'. Cavalcade of America was an anthology drama radio program created and sponsored by the DuPont Company as a promotional...

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