Digital Collections

The Hagley Museum began producing research reports in 1953 for the purpose of developing and elaborating its exhibits and interpretations. They were prepared by a permanent research staff and by participants in the Hagley Fellowship Program, administered jointly with the University of Delaware, many of whom went on to distinguished careers in the history of technology and business. <ol>The reports were produced from manuscript and secondary sources at the Hagley Museum and Library. They have the advantage of collecting and condensing information on selected topics relating to the industrial history of the Brandywine Valley and providing tracings back to the original sources. These reports are maintained in the Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation research reports (Accession 1645) collection, which also includes scholarly articles that use Hagley's collections or about subjects that pertain to Hagley's mission. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

68 items.

Elizabeth Webb (1663-1726) was a minister of the Society of Friends, wife of Richard Webb of Gloucestershire, England, and later of Birmingham Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. In November 1697, Elizabeth Webb and her companion, Mary Rogers, left Bristol, England, in order to visit several important Quaker meetings in North America. They returned to England in May 1699. "A short account of my viage (sic!) into America with Mary Rogers my companion" (Accession 0096) is Webb's journal of that 1697 visit. It includes references to all places visited, especially meetings in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. The names of many Friends are included, and there is much about her religious feelings and inspiration, with some detail on the problems of travel, but little descriptive material on the colonies or the mode of life which then prevailed.

2 items.

Enron Corp. was incorporated in Delaware on April 25, 1930 as the Northern Natural Gas Company. The rise and fall of Enron Corp., a natural gas utility transformed into the world’s largest energy trader, followed a pattern of boom and bust familiar in the history of American business. The papers in the Enron Corp. board records (Accession 2487) collection belonged to Herbert “Pug” Winokur, a member of Enron’s board of directors and chair of its finance committee and are one of the few extant collections of Enron board materials. Winokur used these records to prepare for depositions associated with the Enron bankruptcy. This collection contains meeting minutes, supporting materials and other documents relating to the Department of Justice investigation into the Enron Corp. from 1997 to 2002. It has not been digitized in its entirety.

135 items.

Ernest Dichter (1907-1991) was a major pioneer in consumer motivational research. Early in his career, he worked for the advertising agency of J. Stirling Getchell, Inc. and for the CBS Network before starting his own consulting business in 1946. Dichter provided these services for a wide range of international clients and released a number of newsletter-style serial publications about his work and research. Dichter specialized in the "depth interview" approach, in which samples of target consumers were subjected to a battery of psychological tests and psychoanalytic analysis. This online collection is a small sample of items from two collections at Hagley Library; the Ernest Dichter papers (Accession 2407) collection and the Ernest Dichter photographs and sound recordings (Accession 2009.226) collection.

1508 items.

The Fairmount Park glass plate negatives (Accession 1971.597) collection consists of thirty-five glass negatives and one original box. The negatives themselves include no identifying information, but a sticker on the box indicates that the images are of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Many of the images include identifiable landmarks. The photographer is unknown. Most of the photographs appear to have been taken in Wissahickon Valley Park, historically part of the Fairmount Park system, prior to a 2010 merger of the city’s Fairmount Park Commission and the Department of Recreation. This park is located in Northwest Philadelphia, and includes Wissahickon Creek from its confluence with the Schuylkill River, and extends to the northwestern boundary of the city with eastern Montgomery County. While the photographs are undated, it is estimated that they were taken no earlier than 1908, based on the presence of what appears to be Walnut Lane Bridge, completed in October of that year, in one of the images.

36 items.

The Ferracute Machine Company of Bridgeton, New Jersey, was formed in 1863 by inventor Oberlin Smith. Initially, Ferracute supplied machinery to the makers of tin cans, and by 1891 it offered a full line of machinery for setting up canneries. Ferracute later began manucacturing presses for minting coins, as well as other lighweight machine parts and consumer goods. The Ferracute Machine Company photographs (Accession 1987.244) collection has not been digitized in its entirety. This digital collection contains images of Oberlin Smith and Ferracute employees, the company's shops, as well as images of a trip made by an employee, Henry A. Janvier, who was sent to China as a consultant to the American Trading Company to supervise the installation of Ferracute coining machines in the Imperial Chinese mints in Hubei and Sichuan provinces in 1898.

55 items.

A curated selection of moving picture content from Hagley's Audiovisual Collections. Image: Cans of movie film ready for shipment. DuPont Company.

135 items.

Assembled by collectors Arlene and Gerald Fingerman, the Fingerman collection of ephemera (Accession 2009.213) consists of mixed-format ephemera from various endeavors within American culture, primarily the manufacturing and selling of products or services. Advertising cards and labels compose a large portion of the collection, but it also includes billheads, blotters, bookmarks, business cards, catalogs, checks, envelopes, flyers, letterheads, newsletters, packaging, postcards, and stamps. The collection is organized by the following subjects: agriculture, beverage, cloth/clothing, cosmetic, financial, food, household, medical, religion, sewing, soap, tobacco, transportation, utility product, war, and miscellaneous. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

142 items.

The Fitz Water Wheel Company specialized in the manufacture of water wheels and small power plants. John Fitz (1847-1914), who succeeded his father as head of the firm, developed the modern steel overshot water wheel. Fitz aimed its product at farmers, small millers, and small town hydroelectric and pumping stations in the United States and abroad. The spread of rural electrification cut into Fitz's market, but John Samuel Fitz, who had succeeded his father in 1914, kept the firm in business by shifting to production for "show" rather than productive use. The firm made many model wheels and turbines for engineering schools and historic restorations of working mills. The Fitz Water Wheel Company photographs (Accession 1995.218) collection has been digitized nearly its entirety; duplicate and near-duplicate items have been omitted from scanning.

40 items.

Hanes Hosiery Mills Company was established in 1901 as Shamrock Mills, operating out of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The company initially produced men's socks, but was an early adopter of nylon hosiery manufacture, a process first created in 1938. Hanes Hosiery Mills researched and developed seamless pantyhose by the mid-1960s. The Floyd Hollenbeck sales kit for Hanes Hosiery Mills Co. stereoviews and viewer (Accession 2013.226) collection is a promotional sales album used by Floyd Hollenbeck (1920-2002), a sales agent for Trimfit Hosiery, a distribution company for Hanes Hosiery Mills Company. Hollenbeck worked out of Los Angeles, California and seemed to have covered a fairly large sales region on the west coast. The album contains twenty-four stereoviews of the Hanes Winston-Salem manufacturing plant and offices from the mid-1960s.

24 items.

Frank Earle Schoonover (1877-1972) was a prolific commercial illustrator, artist, and avid photographer based in Wilmington, Delaware. Over the course of a six-decade career, he completed more than twenty-five hundred works, primarily illustrations for magazines and books but also landscapes, portraits, murals, book plates, sculpture, and stained-glass windows. In addition to his own art, Schoonover began teaching in the early 1920s. He was active in the Wilmington arts community, and opened his own school of art in Wilmington in 1941. Schoonover was also an avid photographer. In addition to utilizing travel observations, Schoonover relied on the use of human models for his illustrations throughout his career. The Frank E. Schoonover negatives (Accession 2017.239) collection consists of negatives taken by Schoonover, largely for use as source material for his artwork. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

3792 items.

Frank R. Zebley (1883-1960) was a Delaware native collector, photographer, author, and one-time speaker of the Delaware House of Representatives. As a collector, Zebley specialized in “Delawareana,” books and printed material about the First State. The Frank R. Zebley photograph albums (Accession 1968.012) collection includes nearly 1,500 black and white photographs from the city of Wilmington, locations around Delaware, southeastern Pennsylvania, and other places of interest in the mid-Atlantic region. The photos include street scenes, construction and demolition, public buildings, churches, cemeteries, homes, waterfronts, bridges, mills, automobiles, trains, and people. A special thanks to Hagley volunteer Jean Abplanalp for her photograph research on this collection.

1449 items.

In 1929, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and the Victor Talking Machine Company merged, resulting in the formation of the RCA Victor Company. This merger allowed RCA to consolidate the research, manufacturing,and sales of products and further establish itself as one of the country's leading manufacturers and vendors of radios, phonographs, televisions, and a wide array of consumer and military electronics. The Frederick O. Barnum III collection of RCA Victor Company negatives (Accession 1995.220) collection consists of negatives showing RCA activities and electronic products. These negatives were salvaged by company historian Frederick O. Barnum III from the RCA Camden Plant's photo lab after the plant had been vacated by successor company Martin Marietta Corporation in April 1993. This collection has not been fully digitized.

99 items.

G.C. Murphy Co. was a chain of discount variety stores founded by George Clinton Murphy in 1906 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. Murphy had been an executive with McCrory stores before opening up his own store. After Murphy's death, two former colleagues purchased the company in 1911 and turned it into a chain of 5c-10c-25c stores. Despite the Depression, the company grew, establishing 181 stores in 11 states. By 1976, the company operated 529 stores. In 1985, the chain was purchased by Ames Department Stores. In 1989, it was sold again, this time to the parent company of McCrory stores, McCrory Corp., which filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and liquidated a short time later The photographs in this collection are of a G.C. Murphy store in Washington, D.C., and were taken around the years 1930-1945. One photograph is an interior shot of the store’s soda fountain counter. Eight other photographs document various window displays.

9 items.

Gabrielle Josephine Crofton (1873-1952) was one of six children born to Gabrielle Josephine Shubrick Crofton (1835-1894) and Robert Erskine Anderson Crofton (1834-1898). During the time that these diaries were written, Gabrielle Josephine Crofton was residing in Washington, D.C.; her accounts reflect the leisured life of a middle-class, unmarried woman in the first quarter of the 20th century United States. The Gabrielle Josephine Crofton diaries (Accession 1767) cover the years from 1917 to 1926 and describe activities such as attending church, knitting items for soldiers during World War I, leisure activities, and socializing with friends and family. The later diary includes one program from a 1922 graduation ceremony at Georgetown Visitation Convent, a Catholic school for girls whose graduating class that year included Ethel Crofton Hunt (1902-1972), the daughter of Gabrielle Josephine Crofton's sister, Mary Ethel Crofton Hunt (1875-1962).

2 items.

Genevieve Pittner of Monroe, Michigan, collected roller skating rink stickers between 1941 and 1942. She amassed a large collection by exchanging stickers by mail with other collectors, and she may have been a member of the Universal Roller Skating Sticker Exchange, a national network of sticker enthusiasts who traded. The Genevieve Pittner collection of roller skating rink stickers (Accession 2012.213) consists primarily of roller skating rink stickers during the World War II era. A large album contains most of the stickers in the collection; stickers are attached to album pages and arranged alphabetically by state. The collection also includes notes and correspondence from other sticker traders received by Pittner. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

23 items.

The over 2,400 items in the Gerald A. and Arlene L. Fingerman fabric care memorabilia collection (Accession 2009.0623.GAF) document the history of laundry products between 1875 and the 1970s. The collection contains material from over 1,000 companies and includes soapboxes and ephemera related to laundry soap, bleach, bluing, starch, pressing irons, laundry equipment, and similar products. The Fingerman's collecting interest in fabric care memorabilia results from their involvement in retail dry cleaning and laundry; the couple ran a business in the suburbs of Minneapolis for over thirty-two years. Most of the collection comes from businesses in the United States, but Holland, Switzerland, Malaysia, Australia, and Japan are also represented. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

16 items.

This small digital collection of materials selected from our Arthur Benning collection of Gray and Rogers, Inc. advertising (Accession 2001.233) includes ads created by the Philadelphia advertising firm Gray & Rogers as part of their award-winning "Big frog in small towns" campaign for the weekly newspaper Grit. The ads ran in publishing trade magazines during the 1970s, highlighting to potential advertisers that Grit targeted rural markets that other publications missed. The firm hired freelance artists to bring the frogs to life, many of whom went on to become notable artists and illustrators. These included, among others, Philadelphia children's book illustrator Charles Santore, pop surrealist Todd Schorr, and science fiction specialist Don Ivan Punchatz, who drew the poster for the first Star Wars film. In 1980, the campaign won best of show in the Addy Awards competition sponsored by the Philadelphia Club of Advertising Women out of 350 entries.

17 items.

This digital collection holds individual items from the Hagley Library's Published Collections department that are not otherwise associated with a larger library collection or thematic subject collection. Many of the items here are related to the du Pont family and the E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. These include two works by Bessie Gardner du Pont: a corporate history and a twelve-volume assemblage of translated correspondence of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. The online collection also contains various maps, a biography of Henry du Pont, and a compilation of pamphlets, clippings, and magazine articles relating to several DuPont Company facilities.

167 items.

This is a small collection of articles, excerpts, and essays from Hagley Library's reference file. The material pertains to the history of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, other related Brandywine River Valley topics, and Hagley Library’s archival collections.

38 items.

This collection comprises material published by Hagley Museum and Library from 1998 to the present, including Hagley Newsletter, Hagley Magazine, annual reports, conference materials, and related items. Image: Detail from cover of Hagley Magazine, Spring 2009.

146 items.

The Harlan & Hollingsworth Corporation began in 1836 as a railroad car manufacturer founded by Mahlon Betts and Samuel N. Pusey. Samuel Harlan joined the firm in 1837, and Elijah Hollingsworth followed in 1841. That same year, Harlan purchased Pusey's interest. After Betts retired in 1849, the firm took the name of Harlan & Hollingsworth. In 1843, the company leased a launching berth on the Christiana River and started doing marine engine work. Its shipbuilding activity increased markedly beginning in the 1850s. The company specialized in private steam yachts and commercial shipbuilding. In 1902, the company was included in the horizontal merger of shipyards put together under the title of the United States Shipbuilding Company, which, in 1905, was reorganized as a subsidiary of the new Bethlehem Steel Corporation. This digital collection consists of photographs from cost books found in a subseries of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation records (Accession 1699). These ledgers summarize material and labor costs by department for ships built between 1902 to 1916. In cases where this information is accompanied by photographic records or other images, that information has been digitized here, along with a cover page providing a basic overview for each contract. The cost books have not been digitized in their entirety.

73 items.

This digital collection contains the memoirs of brothers Harry Sooy (1875-1927) and Raymond Sooy (1880-1938), documenting their time as recording engineers for the Victor Talking Machine Company. While trained and hired as machinists, the brothers spent their careers at Victor testing, developing, and operating the technology for recording musicians, performers, comedians, and political figures. Covering a period from 1898 to 1931, the memoirs offer unique insight into the early era of recorded sound. These memoirs are part of Record Group 3, 'Administration records, 1899-2008' in the David Sarnoff Research Center records (Accession 2464.09) collection, which is itself part of the David Sarnoff Library collections (Accession 2464). These collections were the holdings of the David Sarnoff Library, founded in 1967 as part of the David Sarnoff Research Center. When the library closed in 2009, its archival collections were donated to Hagley Library.

2 items.

The Hay’s Fruit Juice Company was founded in in the year 1900 and produced Hay’s Five Fruit, a fruit juice syrup used to make and flavor beverages and desserts. This album was created after September 1923, following the completion of additional construction to a recently purchased new factory at 55-71 York Street, in Portland, Maine. This new location enabled the company to produce three to four thousand bottles of fruit juice syrup a day. The product was entirely produced and stored in the factory until shipping, with separate rooms for pressing fruit, mixing the syrup, filling bottles, and inventory storage. The Hay’s Fruit Juice Company album (Accession 1989.239) contains photographs and advertisements. The photographs are primarily of the factory’s interior and have accompanying captions on the facing pages that describe the manufacturing process of Hay’s Five Fruit. There are two photographs of raspberry fields and workers. The advertisements and labels are for the company’s fruit juice syrup.

22 items.

Henry C. Walton was an industrial chemist who worked at Andrew Carnegie's Edgar Thomson Steel Works near Pittsburgh in the 1870s. In 1880 Walton became associated with Emile Geyelin, a Philadelphia engineer who had done considerable work for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. as both a machinist and hydraulic engineer. Walton and Geyelin joined with J.A. Mathieu, a charcoal manufacturer, to form Mathieu Geyelin & Walton, Ltd. The firm manufactured lead and calcium acetates for sale to Pittsburgh area steel manufacturers. The Henry C. Walton diary (Accession 1883) describes Walton's work as a chemist at the Edgar Thomson Works, including notations on the Bessemer process and analyses of steel produced by Carnegie and other manufacturers. It also contains information on the formation of Mathieu, Geyelin & Walton, Ltd., , including subsequent contracts with carpenters and merchants.

1 items.

Herbert Belar (1901-1997) was an inventor and research scientist in the field of acoustical engineering at the RCA David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, New Jersey for thirty-eight years. He developed "hi-fi" recording, the phonetic typewriter, and the electronic music synthesizer. Belar was born in Laibach, Austria-Hungary and immigrated to the United States in 1919. He began his career with RCA at RCA Victor Photophone in Camden, New Jersey in 1928 after graduating from Drexel University. He was transferred to RCA Laboratories in Princeton in 1948, where he worked in acoustics under Harry F. Olson (1901-1982) for almost twenty years. While at RCA Laboratories, Belar collaborated with Olson to develop the first musical synthesizers: the RCA Mark I and Mark II The Herbert Belar papers (Accession 2767) collection has not been digitized in its entirety. The selected digitized materials included here relate to Olson and Belar's work with electronic musical instrument research and development.

38 items.

The Herbert Harwood Jr. Railroad and Transportation collection of photographic negatives (Accession 2019.212) comprises nearly 150,000 images covering all of the twentieth century. The collection includes Harwood’s own work as a railroad photographer as well as the work of others. Among the collection are photographs from many notable photographers active in the 1930s and ‘40s and well as the work of his father-in-law, George M. Beischer, who served as the chief mechanical officer for several railroads, including the fledgling Amtrak in the 1970s. The collection is currently being processed, and has not been digitized in its entirety.

91 items.

Kevlar is a synthetic fiber developed by chemists Stephanie Kwolek (1923-2014), Paul Morgan (1911-1992), and Herbert Blades in 1965 while working at the DuPont Company. Originally developed with the intent to be used in tires, the unique strength of the fiber made clear numerous other applications. Kevlar is a fiber five times stronger ounce for ounce than steel, but about half the density of fiberglass. Kevlar was first sold commercially in 1971. Best known for its use in protective vests and body armor, Kevlar is also used in optical-fiber cable, and sporting equipment. There are approximately 200 applications of Kevlar. The History of Kevlar oral history interviews (Accession 2014.249) collection documents the research and development processes that transformed Kevlar from a novel polymer in the laboratory to a life-changing product in the marketplace.

6 items.

Hologic, Inc. is a developer and manufacturer of medical digital imaging instruments with a primary focus on mammography and women's health. The company was founded in 1985 by S. David Ellenbogen (1938-2001) and Jay A. Stein (1942-) in Bedford, Massachusetts. The Hologic Digital Mammography oral histories (Accession 2020.201) collection brings together interviews with the individuals involved in inventing, researching, and commercializing digital mammography and breast tomosynthesis at DuPont, Sterling, and Hologic. The interviews address the founding of Hologic and the development of 3D mammography and breast tomosynthesis. It also covers the sale and consolidation of other companies under Hologic; development of new medical imaging machines; certification of new medical devices; negotiations with the medical insurance industry; and selling medical devices and technical support to healthcare systems and care providers.

30 items.

<ol>Founded by Karen and Richard Perez, Home Power magazine was published from October 1987 to November 2018 and played a central role in the mainstreaming of residential-​scale renewable energy systems. It provided a first-​of-​its-​kind networking hub for end-users, professional installers, and equipment manufacturers to interact, share ideas, and advance the use of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles.</ol> <ol>This collection contains the entire 188 issue run of the magazine, which is call number Ebook_2021.0001 in Hagley Library's collections. Issues of the magazine, along with additional information about home power, can also be found at www.homepower.com.</ol>

188 items.

Hoopes Brothers & Darlington, Inc. began in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 1867 as a manufacturer of wooden spokes for wheels, and by the 1880s it had become one of the largest wooden wheel makers in the United States. It remained in business long after other wheel factories had closed, manufacturing wooden wheels until the 1970s. The Hoopes Brothers & Darlington Inc. photograph collection (Accession 1969.099) consists of miscellaneous images from the company, largely dating between 1900 and 1948, as well as advertising material and letterheads. The photographs include images of the company's exhibit at the 1876 International Exposition in Philadelphia' an unidentified ca. 1890 trade show' their saw mill in Jackson, Mississippi, ca. 1910; various models of wooden wheels; two automobiles with wooden wheels; and views of the factory.

64 items.

International Housewares Association is a trade organization that promotes sales and marketing of housewares. It was formed in 1927 when members of the National Home Furnishing Manufacturers Association organized a Chicago exposition to display the products of more than 115 regional housewares manufacturers. The International Housewares Association records (Accession 2245) collection has not been digitized in its entirety. This digital collection contains 63 issues of Housewares MarketWatch from the collection's 'IHA Publications and Trade Literature, 1967-2019' series. The magazine is a quarterly publication provided by International Housewares Association and NPD Research Inc., covering point-of-sale and consumer analysis data on products in the areas of small appliances and housewares.

63 items.

This digital collection combines multiple physical collections from the Library's holdings related to Hudson Maxim (1853-1927), an inventor and chemist best known for his work in the development of smokeless gunpowder and military explosives. These collections include the Hudson Maxim photographs (Accession 1996.312), Hudson Maxim papers (Accession 0509), Hudson Maxim papers (Accession 2147), Hudson Maxim Papers (Accession 2154), and items from our Published Collections. The materials here chronicle Hudson Maxim's life and work from the late 1880's, when he began working for his eldest brother, the inventor Hiram Stevens Maxim (1840-1916), to the final years of his life. They document not only his scientific work, but also his collaborations with the du Pont family and company, as well as his personal business affairs and family life. T This digital collection also includes many materials from his second career as a public speaker and popular personality, known for expounding on a wide variety of topics ranging from scientific and military topics, to poetry, economics, social issues, public affairs, and local politics in his home of Hopatcong, New Jersey.

194 items.

Split off from the International Latex Corporation, ILC Dover is a special engineering development and manufacturing company based in Frederica, Delaware best known for making space suits for NASA. ILC Dover outfitted every United States astronaut in the Apollo program, including the twelve that walked on the moon. ILC also designed and manufactured the Space Suit Assembly portion of the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), worn by astronauts during performance of extra-vehicular activity (EVA) on Space Shuttle missions and on the International Space Station. This collection consists of taped interviews conducted during 1994 and 1996 by Douglas N. Lantry, a PhD candidate at the University of Delaware, of engineers and fabricators who worked on the Apollo spacesuit at ILC. Lantry donated the material serving as the primary sources of his 2010 dissertation, "From the Moon to the Museum: A Material History of Apollo Space Suits" to Hagley. Image: KSC-69PC-381. Buzz Aldrin during suiting operations prior to the liftoff of Apollo 11. Photo courtesy of NASA.

9 items.

The Indiana Ordnance Works was built near Charlestown, Indiana by the DuPont Company for the U.S. government. Construction began in 1940, and by 1941, the Works was manufacturing military explosives, propellants, and smokeless powder. The Works continued to manufacture ordnance for military use throughout the ensuing decades, though it was operated by a variety of corporate entities. In 1964, its name was changed to the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant. In 1992, it was deactivated, and the property was converted to other uses, including an industrial commerce center and a state park. The Indiana Ordnance Works, Ballistics Laboratory photographs (Accession 2001.209) collection consists of photographs of the Ballistics Lab of the Indiana Ordnance Works taken during World War II, including views of testing and test facilities, laboratories, machinery, and male and female workers.

21 items.

Innovation is the quarterly juried journal of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), the professional organization of the industrial design community in the United States. The magazine began in 1982. This publication is call number f TS171.A1 I53 in Hagley Library's Published Collections. This digital collection also contains issues of the society's earlier publications, Journal of the Industrial Designers Society of America, 1968-1972, and Design Journal, 1972-1973.

162 items.

Inside Brown America was a newsletter published by the Institute of Industrial Race Relations and Joseph V. Baker Associates, a public relations firm founded by Joseph V. Baker (1908-1993). Baker was a prominent Black journalist and public relations specialist working out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who also served as the director of the Division of Negro Research and Planning with the Pennsylvania State Department of Labor and Industry. Inside Brown America was one of a number of publications issued through his firm, which provided services to various large corporations and educational institutions. The newsletter, which ran from February 1952 to November 1953, provided Joseph V. Baker Associates' clients with updates on political and economic developments related to Black America. The newsletter also offered news related to Black trade associations and of notable additions of Black professional staff to various corporate entities and government bodies. This digital collection consists of a small number of issues of this newsletter in Hagley Library's collections

6 items.

The Inter-Society Color Council (ISCC) was founded on February 26, 1931 for the purpose of coordinating the activities of leading technical societies relating to the description, specification, and standardization of color and promoting the practical application of this knowledge in science, art, and industry. National associations and technical societies participating in the ISCC represent a wide array of individuals and organizations across a variety of industries and trade associations. Members of the ISCC can be found in the fields of art; science and technology; manufacturers; producers of color reproduction processes; creators of color effects in graphic design; and related fields. The Inter-Society Color Council records (Accession 2188) and Inter-Society Color Council photographs (Accession 2003.228) collections offer material generated by the ISCC as well as by notable individuals and organizations associated with the society. These collections have not been digitized in their entirety, but efforts have been made to sample widely across the collections, with the exception of artifacts, moving images, and audio.

94 items.

The Transportation Act of 1920 required railroads to file with the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) for permission to eliminate tracks from their system. Docket cards were created by the ICC when a railroad initially filed a request. The Interstate Commerce Commission railroad abandonment index (Accession 2014.276) collection consists of index cards to finance dockets involving the Pennsylvania Railroad, Penn Central Transportation Company, and Conrail. The cards document line abandonments and financial transactions from the 1920s through 1985. The cards include, on the top line, a docket number, the date filed, and section of the law under which it was filed. The next line indicates the name of the railroad. The short text is an abstract of the case. For an abandonment, the county and state in which the tracks are located are usually indicated, as well as the length of track to be abandoned and the end points of the abandonment as indicated by a town name or mile posts.

6 items.

This digital collection combines selections from Hagley Library's collections of Irvin Koons photographs (Accession 1996.315), Irv Koons papers (Accession 2132), and Irv Koons memorabilia (Accession 2716), all originating from the life and work of the graphic artist, industrial designer, and illustrator Irv Koons (1922-2017).. During a career which spanned nearly fifty years, Koons earned a reputation as one of the most innovative and influential designers in the packaging industry, with awards in nearly every major packaging competition, including being named Packaging Person of the Year by the Packaging Designers Council in 1982, the fourth year in which the award was bestowed.. These collections include materials documenting his work in marketing and industrial design, his efforts to expand awareness about the historical and contemporary importance of packaging in a consumer economy, his work as an educator in the field of marketing and package design, and his work in advocacy on behalf of underdeveloped and developing nations.

182 items.

James Watson & Sons, also called the Riverview Wagon Works, was a Wilmington, Delaware, company that started as a wagon-builder and restorer. After 1920, the company began customizing truck bodies, special vehicles (bookmobiles, paddy wagons, etc.), buses, and touring trailers. Many of the photographs in the James Watson & Sons Co. photograph collection (Accession 1999.213) show samples of the company's work on wagons, including noteworthy examples of local Wilmington, Delaware dairy farm wagons and trucks. There are also pictures of delivery vehicle, buses and school buses, ambulances, police and rescue squads, Delaware bookmobiles, moving and hauling trucks, commercial trucks, horse trucks, trailers, and other kinds of vehicles. The collection also includes photographs of the company's workers and factory. There are also a few miscellaneous items, including group photographs and family photographs. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

124 items.

The James Zellner glass plate negatives (Accession 1974.278) collection consists of glass plate negatives showing scenes from Carbon County, Pennsylvania during the second half of the 19th century. The photographs are believed to have been taken by James Zellner (1836-1897), a local photographer, during the 1870s and 1880s. The majority of the images show scenes from Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe) and the surrounding area, the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway, and the waterfalls at Glen Onoko. Mauch Chunk was founded in 1818 to serve as a railroad and coal-shipping center to move coal mined by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company to markets along the east coast. Much of the coal that reached Mauch Chunk was transported via the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway, which is also well-represented in this collection. The photographs in this collection document the railway’s use as a tourist attraction and passenger railroad, a secondary use that began in 1861 and became the railway’s primary function after the construction of an 1872 railway tunnel rerouted coal lines.

151 items.

The John B. Stetson Company was a manufacturer of hats. The company was founded in 1865 by John B. Stetson (1830-1906) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its peak, the company employed over 5,000 people and consisted of nine acres and twenty-five buildings around the intersections of 5th Street and Germantown and Montgomery Avenues. Stetson provided generous employee benefits in order to stave off unionization. This led him to establish a school, a hospital, and a building and loan association for his employees, as well as perks such as sports leagues, Christmas turkeys, and Americanization classes. The John B. Stetson Company photographs (Accession 2001.214) collection contains photographs and other material relating to the company. It offers photographs of workers, workspaces, and worker’s amenities. It also includes materials documenting the company’s history and personnel policies.

14 items.

The John B. Stetson Company was a manufacturer of hats. The company was founded in 1865 by John B. Stetson (1830-1906) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its peak, the company employed over 5,000 people and consisted of nine acres and twenty-five buildings around the intersections of 5th Street and Germantown and Montgomery Avenues. Stetson provided generous employee benefits in order to stave off unionization. This led him to establish a school, a hospital, and a building and loan association for his employees, as well as perks such as sports leagues, Christmas turkeys, and Americanization classes. The Postcard views of John B. Stetson plant (Accession 2006.203) collection consists of thirteen unused postcards with halftone photographic illustrations showing views of the Philadelphia plant of the John B. Stetson Company. Images depict plant facilities as well as employees at work and participating in recreational activities. The postcards date to approximately 1913.

12 items.

The John F. Tucker Transit History Collection consists of official documents produced or used by Mr. Tucker during his career as a public transit official, records of the pre-SEPTA Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company (1907-1939) and the Philadelphia Transportation Company (1940-1968) that he preserved from loss or destruction, and materials collected out of his interest in the history of transit systems, particularly electric traction lines. The John F. Tucker collection on transit history (Accession 2046) consists of official documents produced or used by Mr. Tucker during his career as a public transit official, records of the pre-SEPTA Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company (1907-1939) and the Philadelphia Transportation Company (1940-1968), and materials collected out of his interest in the history of transit systems, particularly electric traction lines. The collection traces the evolution of the Philadelphia transit system, its extent, routes and services, and of North American rail rapid transit generally. It has not been digitized in its entirety.

3 items.

John Gordon Rideout (1898-1951) was a noted industrial designer and architect. Rideout began his career in sales, moved into advertising, and eventually opened industrial design firms in Toledo and then Cleveland, Ohio. In 1944, he became one of the 15 founders of the Society of Industrial Designers (SID). The images in this digital collection come from an album of negatives in the John Gordon Rideout papers (Accession 2701) collection. Some of the images, likely dating to the early 1930s, depict Frank Lloyd Wright and his Spring Green, Wisconsin, estate, Taliesin. Others include portraits and candid images of family and friends; the fishing town of Leland, Michigan; an Easter church service; and a Gulf Co. service station. The collection has not been digitized in its entirety.

192 items.

John J. Raskob (1879-1950) was a prominent business and political figure in the early twentieth century. A top financial executive for both E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company and the General Motors Corporation, Raskob was heavily involved in politics, serving as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1928 to 1932. He was also a well-known Catholic noted for his charitable giving. This digital collection is a small selection of items from the John J. Raskob papers (Accession 0473) collection, largely comprising correspondence and pamphlets dating from 1900 to 1950.

419 items.

John McShain (1898-1989) was a Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.-based building contractor, whose firm, John McShain, Inc. During the 1940s and 1950s, McShain became one of America's leading and most visible construction firms. McShain's notable projects included the Jefferson Memorial (1939), the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (1939), the State Department Building (1940), National Airport (1941), the Internal Revenue Building (1942), the Pentagon (1943), the Army Map Service Building (1943), the White House renovation (1950-1951), the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. This digital collection contains a selection of materials from the John McShain photographs (Accession 1990.268) and John McShain papers (Accession 2000) collections documenting John McShain's family life and personal interests, his career as a building contractor, and his involvement in horse racing.

63 items.

Advertising, both print and radio, developed as a prominent industry in the early decades of the twentieth century as popular magazine circulation exploded and the radio became ubiquitous in American households. The John Okolowicz collection of publications and advertising on radio and consumer electronics (Accession 2014.277) consists of digital access copies of publications, including employee magazines, and magazine advertisements for radios and other related household electronics dating from 1912 to 1980. Of note are 141 issues dating from 1945 to 1962 of Philco News, which was the employee newsletter for the Philco Corporation, as well as fifteen issues of Good News about RCA Radiotrons. This collection is comprised of digital access copies. The collector retains the originals.

3039 items.

Opened by marketing pioneer John Wanamaker (1838-1922) at 13th and Market Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1876, Wanamaker’s department store was one of America’s first modern department stores. Wanamaker's goal was to revolutionize the experience of shopping, turning a mundane activity into a grand event. Wanamaker’s was well-ventilated, decorated with contemporary art, with large rooms that, after 1911, included a 150-foot-high Grand Court featuring attractions like the world’s second largest organ. The department store was the first to feature electric lighting, to adopt the telephone, and to install a pneumatic tube delivery systems for transporting documents and cash deposits throughout the building. It also relied on innovations in customer service and marketing, including the substitution of of haggling for prices in favor of a set sales price. This decision was partly due to Wanamaker’s desire to make shopping a more pleasurable, less adversarial experience. But it was also informed by his devout Presbyterian faith, which led him to decide that “if everyone was equal before God, then everyone should be equal before price”. This digital collection offers a selection of individually accessioned catalogs from the Wanamaker department store in Hagley Library's collections.

27 items.