The Hagley Vault

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

May 22, 2023
Black and white image of a young woman holding a strange object up to her eyes.

We're presenting you with a little mystery this week! May 22nd marks the birthdate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which seems like a fine opportunity to test our skills of deduction and detection. The invention shown here was featured in a February 1943 issue of Nation's Business. Can you guess what it was intended to do?


Nation’s Business was a monthly publication from the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, the world’s largest business organization representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions. Chamber members range from small businesses and local chambers to leading industry associations and large corporations.

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Archive

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

Photograph of three women on a porch, ca. 1917.
Monday, February 13, 2023
Happy Galentine's Day, ladies!
Happy Galentine's Day, ladies! Today's photograph offers a quick glimpse into female companionship of years past. This undated photographic negative (ca. 1917?) shows the watercolorist and porcelain painter, Martha Culbertson Schoonover (1880-1965), and two other women. Martha's husband, and the likely photographer that captured this moment of...
Group photo of the Pennsylvania Railroad's 1926 football team, seated on wooden bleachers.
Thursday, February 9, 2023
We're doing our part to muster up some Super Bowl spirit ...
We're doing our part to muster up some Super Bowl spirit as we head into the weekend today. This negative photographic image of the Pennsylvania Railroad's apprentice boys football team was taken on October 11, 1926. The Altoona Works Apprentices were first organized around 1911. The year this photograph was taken, they were defending their title...
Advertisement featuring an illustration of a toddler with food and a glass of root beer. Text reads "Say, Mama, I want another glass of Hires Root Beer'.
Wednesday, February 8, 2023
This ca. 1892 advertisement for Hires root beer was produced by the Charles E. Hires Company ...
This ca. 1892 advertisement for Hires root beer was produced by the Charles E. Hires Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company was founded by the pharmacist Charles Elmer Hires (1851-1937), who debuted his formula at the city's 1876 Centennial Exposition, making Hires Root Beer one of the oldest continuously produced soft drinks in the...
Four filmstrip style images showing different women shoplifting from a department store.
Monday, February 6, 2023
Busted! These images are part of a undated a group of photographs that the Strawbridge & Clothier department store once used ...
Busted! These images are part of a undated a group of photographs that the Strawbridge & Clothier department store once used to train employees on different shoplifting scenarios. They are now part of Hagley Library's collection of Strawbridge and Clothier photographs and audiovisual materials (Accession 1995.250). The collection documents the...
Posed portrait of a seated woman and two standing children, dressed in late 19th-century clothing.
Friday, February 3, 2023
This ca. 1888 glass plate negative, presumably a family portrait, is from Hagley Library’s collection ...
This undated (ca. 1888) glass plate negative, presumably a family portrait, is from Hagley Library’s collection of William Ferris II glass plate negatives (Accession 1974.359). William Ferris II (1822-1909) was, along with Philip Garrett (1814-1896), a senior partner in the firm of the Ferris & Garrett company, a supplier of plumbing fixtures...
Docked boat on a wooden bridge in a wetlands area of Beach Haven, New Jersey
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
This photographic negative of a docked boat was taken in 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...
Illustrated border of cotton flowers surrounding a drawing of a woman's head and shoulders.
Monday, January 30, 2023
Can you keep a secret? Because I can't. So I'll tell you right now ...
Can you keep a secret? Because I can't. So I'll tell you right now - this illustration served as the cover for A Public Secret, a ca.1900 advertising pamphlet for Cottolene, a brand of shortening made by the N. K. Fairbanks Company. The product, made from beef suet and cottonseed oil, was manufactured from 1868 until the early 20th century. The...
Ad for children's activity books and games showing a little girl perusing a large rack of products.
Friday, January 27, 2023
It's all fun and games this Friday ....
It's all fun and games this Friday, thanks to this advertisement from the Whitman Publishing company of Racine, Wisconsin. After taking over the business of Chicago's Hamming-Whitman Publishing Company when it went bankrupt in 1915, Whitman found early success in the business of publishing low-cost children's books and games. This became...
This 1900 glass negative shows the Wilmington Friends School's football team in uniform ...
Wednesday, January 25, 2023
This 1900 glass negative shows the Wilmington Friends School's football team in uniform ...
This 1900 glass negative from Hagley Library’s collection of Thomas C. Marshall photographs (Acc. 1990.270) shows the Wilmington Friends School's football team in uniform. The Marshall family’s patriarch, Israel W. Marshall (1850-1911), founded the Marshall Brothers Paper Mill in Yorklyn in 1890. The wealth generated by this family business...
Cover for sheet music titled "Keep Away from the Fellow who owns an Automobile". Cover depicts a ca
Monday, January 23, 2023
We're starting the week off with a jaunty little warning for #MotorMonday enthusiasts ...
We're starting the week off with a jaunty little warning for #MotorMonday enthusiasts. This cover accompanied sheet music and lyrics written and composed by the composer, songwriter and lyricist Irving Berlin (1888-1989). It was published in 1912 by Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., a music publishing house founded by composer Ted Snyder (1881–...
Two long rows of tables covered in breakfast foods with diners and wait staff.
Friday, January 20, 2023
It's sometimes said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day ...
It's sometimes said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so we're starting our day with a breakfast hosted by the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company on this date, January 20th, in 1920. The breakfast feast was held at Philadelphia's Broad Street Station for employees of the Engineering Department of the company's...
Posed portrait of two well-dressed women attending a ship launching. One is holding a ceremonial bottle and bouquet.
Wednesday, January 18, 2023
This photograph was taken on October 21, 1943 at the launching of the S.S. U.S.O., a Liberty Ship ...
This photograph was taken on October 21, 1943 at the launching of the S.S. U.S.O., a Liberty Ship built by the Bethlehem Ship Corporation. Liberty Ships were cargo ships, mass-produced by American manufacturers using simple, low-cost construction during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Between 1941 and 1945, the eighteen...
Group of anti-poverty and racial justice activists in an office and consulting a transit map.
Monday, January 16, 2023
Today's image from our archives is a photograph taken by photojournalist Dennis Brack (1939- ) from the headquarters of a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ...
Today's image from our archives is a photograph taken by photojournalist Dennis Brack (1939- ) from the headquarters of a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) led protest in Washington, D.C. In 1965, SNCC organized with local anti-poverty activists and other civil rights workers to protest a fare hike by the city's Metro Area Transit...
Posed portrait of William and Charles Green, and Albert Studebaker, with powder container
Friday, January 13, 2023
Today's tintype photograph comes from Hagley Library's collection of ...
Today's tintype photograph comes from Hagley Library's collection of LeCarpentier, Green and Baker family photographs (Accession 1985.256). This collection contains photographs of the LeCarpentier, Green, and Baker families. The families were farmers and merchants in the Delaware valley area. Most of the photographs are portraits and snapshots of...
Two men at work in an office, circa. 1895.
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
Today's #WorkerWednesday is a real blast ...
Today's #WorkerWednesday is a real blast. This 1895 photographic negative was taken inside the office of the Aetna Powder Company, a dynamite works in Aetna, Indiana. This item is part of Hagley Library's Edward M. Harrington collection of Aetna Powder Company and DuPont Company material (Accession 1968.007). Edward M. Harrington (1866-1933) was a...
Black and white image of two children on either side of a man holding a striped sphere.
Monday, January 9, 2023
Children, gather round. Grampa wants to tell you about his sphere again ...
Children, gather round. Grampa wants to tell you about his sphere again ... today's photograph dates to 1907 and shows Albert Henry Munsell (1858-1918) and his family observing a Munsell color sphere in motion. Munsell was a painter and art teacher whose studies of color led to the creation of the Munsell Color System, an attempt to organize,...

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