The Hagley Vault

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

Archive

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

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This ca. 1960s photograph offers a peek into the Bethlehem Steel Company's model ship room ..
This ca. 1960s photograph offers a peek into the Bethlehem Steel Company's model ship room in the company's corporate offices in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  The exhibit featured ninety-eight models of ships built during the mid-1950s by the Bethlehem Steel Shipbuilding division in Quincy, Massachusetts in the mid-1950s, as well…
On this date, November 3, in 1952, the inventor, entrepreneur, and naturalist Clarence Birdseye ...
On this date, November 3, in 1952, the inventor, entrepreneur, and naturalist Clarence Birdseye (1886-1956) first began marketing frozen peas in Chester, New York. Birdseye had begun experimenting with the product after returning from a position as a field naturalist in the Canadian Arctic, where he observed Labrador Inuit people flash-freezing…
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Today's #WorkerWednesday excursion takes us inside the machine shop of the Wright Aeronautical Corporation ...
Today's #WorkerWednesday excursion takes us inside the machine shop of the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, where an employee is conducting drilling operations on the Wright "Whirlwind" motor. The company, which operated out of Paterson, New Jersey from 1919 to 1929, was an aircraft and aircraft engine manufacturer that emerged out of the …
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It's a new month, and today November brings with it the November/December 1948 cover of Better Living magazine ...
It's a new month, and today November brings with it the November/December 1948 cover of Better Living magazine, a DuPont employee magazine created and published by the company's public relations department. The magazine featured the company's popular advertising slogan "Better Things for Better Living...Through Chemistry." This issue was the "…
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Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween! Today's holiday finds us bewitched by this October 1973 issue of Store Chat, the employee magazine of Strawbridge & Clothier, a department store founded by Justus C. Strawbridge (1838-1911) and Isaac H. Clothier (1837-1921) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The magazine published communications from…
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We're heading into the Halloween weekend in good spirits ....
We're heading into the Halloween weekend in good spirits, thanks to the November 1953 issue of Lukens Life magazine, which covered that year's Benner School Halloween parade in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. This photograph shows the fifth grade winners of the school's costume contest, identified in the text as children of Lukens Steel…
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On this date, October 27, in 1873, the farmer and inventor Joseph Farwell Glidden (1813-1906) filed a patent for an "improvement in wire-fences" ...
On this date, October 27, in 1873, the farmer and inventor Joseph Farwell Glidden (1813-1906) filed a patent for an "improvement in wire-fences" that he developed to help fence in cattle. The patent was awarded on November 24, 1874 and made Glidden, by then 61 years old, the (only somewhat disputed) inventor of modern barbed wire. Glidden's claim…
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This ca. 1880 photograph shows the employees of the Crosby & Hill department store ...
This ca. 1880 photograph shows the employees of the Crosby & Hill department store in Wilmington, Delaware. The store, a common reference in Hagley Library's oral history collection of Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation interviews on the history of the DuPont Company Powder Yard (Accession 1970.370), opened at 220-222 Market Street in the…
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We've got a full house this #TrainTuesday ...
We've got a full house this #TrainTuesday - this black and white negative from November 2, 1938 shows fifty-eight employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, posed in front of the steam engine boiler for "The Big Engine", an experimental S1 class steam locomotive. At the time it was built, the duplex locomotive was the longest and heaviest…
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Today's post comes courtesy of a little extra coffee on a Monday morning ...
Today's post comes courtesy of a little extra coffee on a Monday morning - this ca. 1931 advertisement is from Hagley Library's Advertising cards and calendar collection (Accession 1992.229). This collection consists of a large group of trade cards and calendars advertising a variety of products and services, including agricultural machinery and…
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On this date in 1906, inventor and electronics pioneer ...
On this date in 1906, inventor and electronics pioneer Lee DeForest (1873 - 1961) appeared before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers to announce that he had completed development of his "Audion" triode, or three-element electrical vacuum tube. The invention would later be patented on January 15, 1907 The device…
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Today's #WorkerWednesday guests are the cooks and kitchen crew of the steamship Queen Anne ...
Today's #WorkerWednesday guests are the cooks and kitchen crew of the steamship Queen Anne, photographed on November 17, 1915 by William J. Conner. Conner was the company photographer for the Pusey and Jones Corporation, the shipbuilding company that also built the Queen Anne. This item is part of Hagley Library's Pusey and Jones…
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Today's #TradeCardTuesday is brought to us by the Columbia Perfume Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ...
Today's #TradeCardTuesday is brought to us by the Columbia Perfume Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This label for the company's Columbia hair tonic is undated, but possibly created between 1910 and 1920. This item is part of Hagley Library's Fingerman ephemera collection (Accession 2009.213).  Assembled by collectors Arlene and Gerald…
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The internet says that today International Roller Skating Day ...
The internet says that today International Roller Skating Day. The holiday appears to be a made up one organized around October being National Roller Skating Month, a designation assigned by Roller Skating Association International, a a trade association representing commercial and nonprofit skating center owners and operators (the association…
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This weekend will mark a historic moment in communications and aviation history ....
This weekend will mark a historic moment in communications and aviation history. On October 15, 1910, Melvin Vaniman sent one of the first in-flight air to ground radio transmissions; "Roy, come and get this goddamned cat." The flight in question was that of the dirigible America. Led by journalist and aviator Walter Wellman, the flight was…
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Here's a special sneak peek ....
Here's a special sneak peek at what we have in store for guests of the Wagner Free Institute of Science tonight. We'll be joining them this evening for their annual Archives Month Lantern Slide Salon, where we'll be sharing slides made by William H. Rau (1855-1920) for the Lehigh Valley Railroad. This hand-colored lantern slide, titled "…