The Hagley Vault

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

February 1, 2023
Docked boat on a wooden bridge in a wetlands area of Beach Haven, New Jersey

This photographic negative of a docked boat was taken in Beach Haven, New Jersey. The image is undated, but was possibly created roughly around the year 1915. It part of Hagley Library's collection of Frank E. Schoonover negatives (Accession 2017.239).


Schoonover, a prolific commercial illustrator and artist, was also an avid photographer whose many photographs were frequently taken for use as source material for his artwork. While the collection contains many quiet, atmospheric landscapes like this one, he was better known for his illustrations of grand adventures and larger than life figures, and he maintained that artists’ output should be informed by lived experience.

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Archive

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

Advertising card for Morton's Salt. Features vegetables collecting salt from a pouring can.
Friday, November 18, 2022
It’s iconic and ionic …ranging from literature on salt mining to theses on halophilic enzymes ...
It’s iconic and ionic …ranging from literature on salt mining to theses on halophilic enzymes, Hagley Library’s Carol Litchfield collection on the history of salt (Accession 2012.219) is one of the world’s greatest resources on the subject of salt. This advertising card featuring anthropomorphic veggies that "know what's good for them" is one of...
Black and white photograph of a baby, warmly dressed, in a baby carriage.
Thursday, November 17, 2022
Brr!!! We're off to a chilly start at Hagley Library this morning ...
Brr!!! We're off to a chilly start at Hagley Library this morning. Today's image, much like today's weather, is a reminder to bundle up in something cozy as we head into winter. This ca. 1924 photograph shows a wee little Thomas C. Marshall, Jr. and comes from Hagley Library’s collection of Thomas C. Marshall photographs (Acc. 1990.270). The...
Black and white photograph of Black workers seated in the a dining room; all are wearing uniforms
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Today's #WorkerWednesday post joins a November 1951 event celebrating employees of Strawbridge & Clothier ...
Today's #WorkerWednesday post joins a November 1951 event celebrating employees of Strawbridge & Clothier, a family-owned major department store chain in the Greater Philadelphia area. The company was founded by Justus C. Strawbridge (1838-1911) and Isaac H. Clothier (1837-1921) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It first opened on July 1, 1868,...
Ad for a rendering company featuring children surrounded by living animals in a bucolic landscape.
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Absolutely nobody was asking for a #TallowTuesday, but here it is anyway ...
Absolutely nobody was asking for a #TallowTuesday, but here it is anyway. This poster for the Myerstown Hide & Tallow Company of Myerstown, Pennsylvania is part of Hagley Library's collection of Carter Litchfield photographs and ephemera on the history of fatty materials (Accession 2007.227). This is undated, but was probably created in the...
Black and white aerial photograph of the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse and surrounding landscape.
Monday, November 14, 2022
We're starting off a new week with this atmospheric photograph of the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse ...
We're starting off a new week with this atmospheric photograph of the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse at the entrance of the Delaware Bay near Lewes, Delaware. This image was captured around 1925 by the Dallin Aerial Surveys Company, an aerial photography service founded in 1924 by Colonel J. (John) Victor Dallin (1897-1991). Dallin was a Royal Flying...
Black and white image of a courthouse decorated with bunting in honor of the Union Veterans Legion (Wilmington, Del.)
Friday, November 11, 2022
This bunting-draped courthouse in downtown Wilmington, Delaware is being posted in recognition of ...
This bunting-draped courthouse in downtown Wilmington, Delaware is being posted in recognition of today's Veterans' Day holiday. The building was decorated to honor a Union Veteran Legion National Encampment in the city, held from September 12-16, 1905. The Union Veteran Legion was founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 5, 1885, and...
Black and white photograph of Howard Ellsworth Seal, Jr. and Lewis Welch on Harley Davidson motorcycle at Locust Knoll Farm
Thursday, November 10, 2022
On this date, November 10, in 1885 the 17 year old son of the German inventor and engineer Gottlieb Daimler ...
On this date, November 10, in 1885 the 17 year old son of the German inventor and engineer Gottlieb Daimler (1834-1900) made the first long-distance test run of the world's first motorcycle. Paul Daimler traveled from Cannstatt to Unterturkheim and back on the "Reitwagen", a motorcycle prototype with a wooden frame and wheels, no suspension system...
Black and white group photograph of a large number of people, mostly women and young girls.
Wednesday, November 9, 2022
This 1910 #WorkerWednesday photograph comes from Hagley Library's collection of Photographs of child labor in Delaware ...
This 1910 #WorkerWednesday photograph comes from Hagley Library's collection of Photographs of child labor in Delaware (Accession 2002.252), a small collection that documents some of the work of the sociologist and muckraking documentary photographer Lewis Wickes Hine (1874 - 1940). Hines's photographic exposés of child labor were generated...
Color poster with illustrations of a railroad station and railroad workers holding ballots.
Tuesday, November 8, 2022
The Railway Labor Executivess Association (RLEA) is joining you at the polls this Election Day ...
The Railway Labor Executives' Association (RLEA) is joining you at the polls this Election Day with this ca. 1944 poster. The RLEA was founded in 1926 to lobby on behalf of a federation of railroad labor unions in the United States and Canada. It served this purpose until 1997, when it was disbanded in favor of a newly formed rail division of the...
Catalog cover. Black and white image of two fishermen. Text reads "Man ... It's the Greatest Thing that ever Happened for Sportsmen!"
Monday, November 7, 2022
Today's #MotorMonday image features the cover of a brochure advertising the 1941 line of Nash automobiles ...
Today's #MotorMonday image features the cover of a brochure advertising the 1941 line of Nash automobiles, all of which featured a convertible "sleeper" rear seat marketed specifically to consumers with an interest in hunting, fishing, and camping. This item is part of Hagley Library's collection of Z. Taylor Vinson collection of transportation...
Color photograph of a man and child looking at an exhibit of model ships.
Friday, November 4, 2022
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 as a model of and...
Thursday, November 3, 2022
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...
Black and white photograph of a man working in a machine shop.
Wednesday, November 2, 2022
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 Wright-...
Cover of Better Living magazine featuring a woman in a nylon dress and hat.
Tuesday, November 1, 2022
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 "...
Halloween themed cover of Store Chat magazine featuring a witch flying through a moonlit sky on a broomstick.
Monday, October 31, 2022
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 management, news about...
Black and white image of four fifth grade children in 1950s Halloween costumes
Friday, October 28, 2022
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 employees - "(...

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