The Hagley Vault

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

February 6, 2023
Four filmstrip style images showing different women shoplifting from a department store.

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).

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Archive

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

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 - "(...
Page from a catalog for fencing showing illustrations of barb wire.
Thursday, October 27, 2022
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...
Black and white group photo of men, women, and children in front of a department store.
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
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...
Group photograph of a large number of men in work clothes posed in front of a steam engine boiler
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
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...
Advertisement featuring an illustration of a woman drinking coffee.
Monday, October 24, 2022
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...
Illustration of a young man surrounded by orbiting electronics, arrayed in the style of an atom.
Thursday, October 20, 2022
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 was created by placing a...
Group photograph of four people in professional kitchenwear on board a boat.
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
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 Corporation...
Label for Columbia hair tonic. Illustration shows a woman with long hair.
Tuesday, October 18, 2022
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...
Black and white photograph of a man helping a woman strap roller skates onto her shoes.
Monday, October 17, 2022
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...
Cover of Hampton's Magazine featuring an illustration of an airship.
Friday, October 14, 2022
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 an...
Hand colored lantern slide from a scenic overlook over the Nesquehoning Valley.
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
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 "...
Color image of two men installing a large UNIVAC computer
Tuesday, October 11, 2022
Today's #TechTuesday find shows employees of the Sperry UNIVAC division ...
Today's #TechTuesday find shows employees of the Sperry UNIVAC division installing a UNIVAC Solid State Computer at the Ilion Computer School around the year 1959. The Sperry Corporation was an electronics company that manufactured the first commercial digital computer. Its UNIVAC division has its origins in the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation...
Spread from Fury magazine. Illustration of an attacking bear.
Monday, October 10, 2022
Chunk would never ....
Chunk would never ....​ or maybe he would. On this penultimate day of Katmai National Park's annual Fat Bear Week, we're sharing a spread from the December 1953 issue of Fury Magazine: Exciting Adventures for Men. Published by Weider Publications in Jersey City, N.J. from October 1954 to May 1961, the magazine was one of many examples of a genre...
Switchback view of the Mauch Chunk Railway tracks from the top of Jefferson Plane
Friday, October 7, 2022
America's first intentionally constructed roller coaster opened on June 16, 1884 ...
America's first intentionally constructed roller coaster opened on June 16, 1884 at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York. But Americans looking for thrills prior to that date had two options; travel overseas to the Promenades Aériennes (or, "the Aerial Walk), which became the world's first roller coaster when it opened in Parc Beaujon in Paris on...
May 1955 cover of Lukens Life. Photograph of children writing a thank-you letter to Jonas Salk.
Thursday, October 6, 2022
On this date in 1956, Dr. Albert Sabin announced ....
On this date, October 6, in 1956, Dr. Abert Sabin announced that a new orally-administered vaccine for polio was ready for worldwide testing. Sabin's vaccine followed the one developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, which completed testing on April 12, 1955, as well as an early vaccine developed by virologist Hilary Koprowski in the late 1940s. At the time...

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