On May 14th, eighty participants in a class offered by the Hagley Library came to the Soda House to see firsthand the collections they had been hearing about all semester. The class, called “Hagley Does History,” brought a succession of Hagley staff members to the campus of the Osher Institute for Lifelong Learning at the University of Delaware on Route 52, just five minutes from Hagley. There were eighty-even registered for the class, many not quite sure what to expect, but curious to learn about what could be found in the library.
Osher participants view blueprints
What they learned amazed many. Few had been in the library, and most assumed it was mostly about the du Pont family and company. Instead they learned about Thomas Lamb, who designed ergonomic handles and other products using the principles of universal design; the employee magazines that offered amazing insights into the people who worked for so many firms; David Sarnoff and the remarkable collection he had assembled documenting himself and RCA employees; and the trade catalogues collected by Z. Taylor Vinson that documented virtually every car ever made throughout the world since 1893. They also learned about the complexity of library operations: what it took to classify so many different kinds of documents so they could be found by researchers; what was involved in making sure that that the photos, films, and papers in our collection did not deteriorate over time; and the challenges of collecting the digital documents created in the last few years so they can be found by researchers a hundred years hence. And they also found out more (if unexpected) about the du Pont family: how the du Ponts developed a tradition of “calling” on New Year’s day; how du Pont family members played such a central role building Kennett Pike; and how family members helped keep Delaware in the Union during the Civil War.
Thomas Lamb illustration of ergonomic handles
Still, they were impressed to actually see our cavernous archives, and appreciated the chance to peruse the many documents they had been told about by library staff during their talks. We plan to come back to Osher with “Hagley Does History” in spring 2016, and are considering ways to offer some of these talks at Hagley itself.
Roger Horowitz is Director, Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at Hagley.