The Hagley Vault

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

March 31, 2023
Hand colored lantern slide of a rose garden with shrubs and a floral arch.

April is just one day away and we're looking forward to a week of Springtime weather on the grounds of Hagley. This calls for some #FridayFlowers!


This lantern slide shows a hand-colored lantern slide, created from a black and white photograph taken on June 10, 1922, of the hybrid perpetual rose garden at Longwood, the garden estate of Alice Belin and Pierre S. du Pont. 


The image is the work of William Corbit Spruance, Jr. (1873-1935). Spruance was an electrical engineer, a company executive on the board of directors of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, and a civic leader in Wilmington, Delaware. Spruance was also an amateur photographer and used these skills to photograph his wife Alice's gardens, as well as the gardens of other wealthy residents of New Castle County between 1920 and 1925.

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Archive

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

Monday, October 19, 2020
Fret not; finding a subject for today's #MusicMonday post was no...
Fret not; finding a subject for today's #MusicMonday post was no treble. This undated negative was possibly captured between 1915 and 1925, and 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 avid photographer whose many photographs...
Friday, October 16, 2020
This arresting photograph was taken on this day, October 16th,...
This arresting photograph was taken on this day, October 16th, in 1930, when a coalition of protesters organizing for the rights of the unemployed were rounded up and jailed following a demonstration in front of New York City Hall calling on Mayor Jimmy Walker to abandon plans to appropriate an additional $8,000,000 for the city's police and...
Thursday, October 15, 2020
Thomas Edison's Edison Electric Light Company began operations...
Thomas Edison's Edison Electric Light Company began operations on this date, October 15, in 1878. One of many business entities founded by Edison, the Electric Light Company was a patent-holding corporate entity backed by J. P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family for the purposes of funding Edison's experiments with the incandescent bulb and electric...
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
On this day, October 14, in 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King,...
On this day, October 14, 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his advocacy and leadership in using nonviolent civil disobedience to protest racial segregation in America. At 35, King was the youngest person to have been honored with the award to that date. The prize money, amounting to $54,000, was re-distributed...
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
The second Tuesday in October is Ada Lovelace Day...
The second Tuesday in October is Ada Lovelace Day, a day of recognition launched in 2009, when the British tech journalist Suw Charman-Anderson began a campaign to establish an "international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology". We're participating today with this clip from a longer reel of historic, ca. 1945...
Monday, October 12, 2020
In recognition of this year's Indigenous Peoples' Day, we're...
In recognition of this year's Indigenous Peoples' Day, we're sharing some photographs from illustrator and painter Frank E. Schoonover (1877-1972). These images were captured during a 1911 trip to Long Lake, Ontario, which Schoonover spent sketching and photographing supply posts of the Hudson Bay Company, fur trapping outposts, and indigenous...
Friday, October 9, 2020
We're bringing some Fall weather style inspiration...
We're bringing some Fall weather style inspiration this #FashionFriday with this 1937 photograph of a woman identified only as "Ms. Knight". This item is from Hagley Library's Frank R. Zebley photograph albums (Accession 1968.012) collection. Zebley (1883-1960) was a Delaware native collector, photographer, author, and one-time speaker of the...
Thursday, October 8, 2020
To get you through the home stretch of a tough week...
To get you through the home stretch of a tough week, we're using this #ThrowbackThursday to remember a time when ginger ale advertisements were bold in both design and claims. This ca. 1890 trade card for Sachs-Prudens & Co. ginger ale encouraged buyers to bring home one (or a dozen) bottles to "please the wife and children". The soft drink...
Wednesday, October 7, 2020
In the 1920s, building on the success of the government's WWI...
In the 1920s, building on the success of the government's WWI poster campaign and, in response to the labor struggles of the time, Mather & Company created a series of workplace posters marketed towards employers. From 1923 to 1929, businesses that subscribed to the Chicago, Illinois company's workplace poster program received a new poster...
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Today is #TradeCardTuesday, and we're sharing a ca. 1885 trade card...
Today is #TradeCardTuesday, and we're sharing a ca. 1885 trade card for Scourene household potash soap from the Simonds Soap Company, which operated out of New York City between 1883 and 1891. This item is from Hagley Library's collection of Carter Litchfield photographs and ephemera on the history of fatty materials (Accession 2007.227). As an...
Monday, October 5, 2020
This #MotorMonday, we're taking a ride in a Berkeley...
This #MotorMonday, we're taking a ride in a Berkeley. These microcars, which ran on motorcycle-derived engines,were manufactured by England's Berkeley Cars, Ltd. from 1956 to 1960. This model, the T60, was the company's only three-wheel model and was released in September 1959. The wheel arrangement was a real selling feature; in England, they...
Friday, October 2, 2020
I was going to make a post about salt this #FoodieFriday, but...
I was going to make a post about salt this #FoodieFriday, but then I was like, Na. This ca. 1958 postcard is a reproduction of a billboard created for the Morton Salt Company by the Donnelly Advertising Company, an outdoor advertising company founded in Boston in 1850 as John Donnelly & Sons. This item, along with twenty-five other Morton Salt...
Thursday, October 1, 2020
Hello, Sweater Weather! We're cozying up to October...
Hello, Sweater Weather! We're cozying up to October today with this 1965 September/October cover of Dupont Magazine. Established in 1913, DuPont Magazine publicized the products and progress of the DuPont company during the twentieth century. The issues include articles, product information, and advertisements on topics such as dynamite, quarrying...
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Today's #WorkerWednesday post features Peggy Ward, a "yarn inspectress"...
Today's #WorkerWednesday post features Peggy Ward, a "yarn inspectress" at DuPont's nylon plant in Seaford, Delaware. She appeared on this May/June, 1953 issue of Better Living as part of a story about her experience working as a salesperson behind the hosiery counter of Strawbridge & Clothier's Wilmington, Delaware department store. Better...
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
There are a lot of national and international Coffee Days out...
There are a lot of national and international Coffee Days out there, from the All Japan Coffee Association's preferred date of October 1st (established 1983 and adopted by the International Coffee Organization in March 2014) to New Orleans' Southern Food and Beverage Museum's date of October 3rd (established 2009). Mongolians set theirs as early...

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