African American Resources at Hagley 

The Hagley Museum and Library is dedicated to supporting research into the history of race and racism. We are working with staff and our research community to improve our metadata and collection descriptions to identify content related to race and racism in our historical archive. This requires an assessment and appropriate revisions of all our online collection information. We are also updating current processing and cataloging documentation to guide staff in describing our collections for our researchers so that the experience of race and evidence of race relations and institutional racism can be more easily discovered. We are committing collection development resources to work with African American businesses, trade organizations, and individuals so that our collections will better reflect the diverse history of business, technology, and innovation. Our Collections Development Policy has included goals to build more varied collections for over two decades. At the same time, we strive to attract scholars engaged in meaningful work in remedying gaps in the historical record. While we have made progress in creating a more diverse collection in some areas, we acknowledge the need to do better in expanding our materials that document the African American experience in business and innovation. 

We encourage historians, scholars, and the public to work with us. We are determined to make permanent and sustainable changes. 

Below are links to exhibits, projects, interviews, and articles related to African American history at the Hagley Library. While we are proud of our work highlighting diversity issues in our collections, we look forward to doing more. 

THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF ROSETTA HENDERSON
In 1965, Rosetta McKinley Henderson became the first female African American chemist hired by the DuPont Company in Wilmington, Delaware.
Reinventing History: Ep. 4: Black Inventors
In this video, Hagley honors Black inventors. During the 1800s, the Patent Office did not require inventors to disclose their race. Although we do not know of any patent models from any Black inventors, we acknowledge their contributions to our nation's innovation.
Conversations on African American History
Interviews with former students and teachers in the Du Pont schools provide the source for a series of short films on African American history in Delaware.
Dr. Wesley Memeger Jr.: Scientist, Artist, Activist
A digital exhibit on the life of Dr. Wesley Memeger Jr., a long-time DuPont chemist at the Pioneering Research Laboratory, who played a crucial role in streamlining the production of Kevlar.
Robert Smalls / Soldiers and Powdermen
An online exhibition exploring the lives of ten individuals whose names might not be familiar but whose impact on the story of the du Ponts and the Civil War is significant.
Films of Midvale Steel in Philadelphia, 1919
In the 1890s, Midvale began employing African Americans to work alongside its white labor force, a practice very out of the ordinary among Philadelphia industries.
Madam Walker:The Key to Beauty, Success, Happiness
Madam C. J. Walker (1867-1919) was America's first Black woman millionaire.
Interview with Mary Hazzard Collins
Mary Hazzard Collins worked in the powder yards as a foreman during WWI and later operated elevators in the DuPont Building.
A Separate Place and Conversations on African American History
A Separate Place: The Schools P.S. du Pont Built (2001) tells the surprising story of the connection between Pierre S. du Pont's philanthropy and efforts by African Americans to obtain quality education.
Hagley Historian Livestreams: S.F. du Pont, Slavery, and “Contrabands”
Samuel Francis Du Pont got to see slavery firsthand while commanding the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the American Civil War.
Henry du Pont and the American Civil War
Lucas Clawson discusses Henry du Pont, President of the DuPont Company during the American Civil War, and his role in keeping the state of Delaware loyal to the Union and supplying propellants to the U.S. Armed Services.
Lucas Clawson discusses Robert Smalls
Hagley Historia Lucas Clawson discusses Robert Smalls, an enslaved person on a ship called The Planter. He and the crew stole the boat on May 13, 1862, and sailed out of Charleston's harbor. Samuel Francis du Pont was so impressed with Mr. Smalls that he brought him into the US Navy!
Du Bois Infographics Expose the American “Color Line” at 1900 Paris Fair
Published in 2018, this book is the first printed compilation of illustrative charts on the "American Negro" displayed at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris.
The historic "Green Book" for African American Travelers
In 2018, Hagley received an original copy of the 1946 edition with the acquisition of the John Margolies Collection of Travel Ephemera.
Interview with Wesley Memeger Jr.
Wesley Memeger Jr. helped develop the chemistry of Kevlar so that it could become a profitable commodity.
Interview with John Gilbert Braun
John Gilbert Braun was a powder yard worker in DuPont’s Moosic (PA) black powder facility and became a foreman.
Interview with William H. Buchanan
William Buchanan’s father worked in the Hagley powder yards. His oral history covers the breadth of the experience, but after 83 minutes (review index) also notes seeing the 1903 lynching of George F. White, accused of raping and murdering a school teacher.
Lessons from the Early Beginnings of Black Empowerment
Jessica Levy on Black Empowerment in business in the 1960s and 1970s and efforts to export this approach to other countries, specifically apartheid-era South Africa.
The Surprising Origins of the Haitian Revolution
Jesus Ruiz discusses his research on the ideological origins of the Haitian Revolution.
Delaware School Auxiliary Association
Hagley Historian Lucas Clawson discusses Pierre du Pont and his involvement with the Delaware School Auxiliary Association in the early 1920s.
National Urban League publications, 1930-1960
A digital collection that includes a selection of publications issued by the national and regional branches of the Urban League.
Lukens Steel Co Employee Newsletters Online
Lukens had a history of hiring African American workers in the 19th century and was a landing place for many southern and eastern European immigrants in the early 20th century.
Interview with James West
Dr. James West discusses his research on Seagram advertising in African American publications such as Ebony Magazine in this interview.
Fighting Discrimination on the Pennsylvania Railroad
Like many other Black railroaders in 1919, Charles Malone faced blatant opposition from the unions and relative indifference from the company.
The Fight to End Employment Discrimination in Cleveland
Slide films produced by Cinecraft Productions titled "The Challenge for Cleveland" (1948) promoted work emphasizing the adverse effects of discrimination in employment.
Supermarkets, Segregation, and Racial Capitalism
My dissertation project, “Checking Out of Urban America: Supermarkets, Segregation, and Late-20th Century Racial Capitalism,” seeks to transform our understanding of why and how supermarkets abandoned Black and working-class neighborhoods in U.S. cities
Inside Brown America newsletter
Joseph V. Baker (1908-1993) was a prominent Black journalist and public relations specialist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Sundown Towns & The Great Migration in Appalachia
Social historian Matthew O’Neal, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Georgia, uncovers the story of two eastern Kentucky towns that reacted differently to the Great Migration.
Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America
Marcia Chatelain explores how fast-food restaurants saturated black neighborhoods and became, as well, a focal point in the development of "black capitalism."
How Black Philadelphia Caterers Transformed Taste into Capital
Danya Pilgrim reveals the development and efflorescence of a Philadelphia catering industry owned and operated by African American waiters, brokers, cooks, & others.

 

For more information, please get in touch with us at research@hagley.org