The Hagley Vault

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

April 21, 2025
Advertisement depicting a family and pets in silhouette, engaged in a chaotic chase after a rat

This week's visitor to the Hagley Vault is the E.S. Wells Medical Company, which produced this ca. 1890 advertising card for it's "Rough on Rats" pesticide. The New Jersey firm manufactured a strange combination of products: medicines for the general public, as well as rat poison.


The company's founder, Ephraim S. Wells (1841-1913) began his career apprenticing to a druggist in West Virginia before moving to New Jersey in 1862. There, he worked for a time in L.B. Bowie's Drug Store in Uniontown before purchasing two drugstores in Jersey City and, eventually, a manufacturing plant for his remedies. 

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Archive

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

Advertisement for "Parker's Ginger Tonic" showing a woman in a yellow bonnet holding a flower.
Friday, July 15, 2022
Let's head out for the weekend, rescued from our bed of suffering and with a bloom of health ...
Let's head out for the weekend, rescued from our bed of suffering and with a bloom of health to our cheeks and delight in our hearts. This trade card for Parker's Ginger Tonic is undated, but was created by the New York City firm of Hiscox & Co., which was doing business in the city by 1877 and continued to operate for at least a decade after...
Catalog titled "Restful Bedrooms", with a color illustration of a restful bedroom.
Thursday, July 14, 2022
We're posting this 1930 catalog for bedroom furniture today on account of Sarah Elisabeth Goode ...
We're posting this 1930 catalog for bedroom furniture today on account of Sarah Elisabeth Goode (1850-1905), one of the first Black women to be issued a U.S. Patent in her own name on this date, July 14, in 1885. Goode's patent, No. 322,177, was for a cabinet with a fold out bed that could be used during the day as a desk, a precursor to the...
Cover for pamphlet titled "This is where we work", color illustration of a man and woman in front of an automobile plant.
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
Your hosts this #WorkerWednesday are the men and women of New Zealand Ford ...
Your hosts this #WorkerWednesday are the men and women of New Zealand Ford. This ca. 1944 pamphlet produced by the Ford Motor Company of New Zealand took readers for a tour of activities in the plant during World War II, when production shifted to support the war effort. Billed as a "tribute to New Zealand Ford ‘ workers", the pamphlet offered...
Illustration advertising glue shows a silhouette of a family, with the father stuck to a chair.
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
It's #TradeCardTuesday and we're stuck on this advertisement for cement glue ...
It's #TradeCardTuesday and we're stuck on this advertisement for cement glue from Van Stan's Stratena Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company was founded 1876, when the compound's inventor, the English glue merchant Frederick Van Stan, sold his rights to the name and manufacture to Philadelphia resident John A. Keenan. Keenan would...
Black and white image of two men and a woman standing in front of a stratosphere gondola balloon.
Monday, July 11, 2022
This photograph shows Maj. William Kepner, Lorena Berry ....
This photograph shows Maj. William Kepner, Lorena Berry (wife of the governor of South Dakota), and Capt. Albert Stevens christening the stratosphere gondola 'Explorer', on this date, July 11th, in 1934. The balloon, which launched on July 28th from Rapid City, South Dakota, was part of a project sponsored by the National Geographic Society and...
Page of a 1925 department store catalog featuring illustrations of women's summer dresses.
Friday, July 8, 2022
Today's #FashionFriday brings us some delightful frocks for informal wear ...
Today's #FashionFriday brings us some delightful frocks for informal wear through summer's sunny hours, courtesy of John Wanamaker's summer 1925 edition of its store catalog, Store and Home. Opened by marketing pioneer John Wanamaker (1838-1922) at 13th and Market Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in April, 1876, Wanamaker’s department store...
This photograph shows June Croll, a representative of the Communist-affiliated National Textile Workers Union, speaking at a Jobless March that occurred in New York City on July 7, 1931
Thursday, July 7, 2022
This photograph, taken #OTD in 1931, shows June Croll ...
This photograph shows June Croll (1901-1967), a representative of the Communist-affiliated National Textile Workers Union, speaking at a Jobless March that occurred in New York City #OTD, July 7, in 1931.  The march, organized by members of the American Workers' Communist Party and the Unemployment Council of Greater New York, as well as other...
Black and white image of a locomotive built in 1921.
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
The Vulcan Iron Works was founded in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1849 ....
The Vulcan Iron Works was founded in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1849 to produce specialty iron products for the local coal industry. It would later establish additional shops in West Pittston and Tamaqua, Pennsylvania. In 1888, Vulcan acquired the Wyoming Valley Manufacturing Company, makers of locomotives. This soon became a major part of...
Cover of a pamphlet; photograph of women using a timeclock, title "American Women at War"
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
This #WW2Wednesday post features the pamphlet "American Women at War"...
This #WW2Wednesday post features the pamphlet "American Women at War". This 1942 booklet was sponsored by the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Industrial Information Committee as part of a campaign to confront wartime labor shortages by promoting the temporary employment of women into occupations traditionally held by...
Black and white group portrait of automobile industry workers posed in front of a stars and stripped patterned banner backdrop
Friday, July 1, 2022
Hagley Library will be closed on Monday, July 4 for the Independence Day holiday ...
Hagley Library will be closed on Monday, July 4 in celebration of Independence Day. In the spirit of the holiday, we're posting this ca. 1920(?) photograph today of employees of the General Motors Corporation, posed in front of a stars and stripes themed banner. This photograph is part of Hagley Library's P.S. du Pont Longwood photograph...
Black and white photograph of a woman in a calf-length cocktail dress, with a red fabric sample
Thursday, June 30, 2022
This 1956 photograph and fabric sample shows a cocktail dress by Mary Matise for Jimmae ...
This 1956 photograph and fabric sample shows a cocktail dress by Mary Matise for Jimmae in Everglaze Minicare 'Bengalane' cotton faille by ABC Fabrics. We're featuring it today because you might soon see it somewhere else! We were happy to supply this image to the White House Historical Association's first-ever virtual fashion exhibit, staged in...
Wednesday, June 29, 2022
Industrial design—the practice of optimizing the function, value, and appearance of products ...
Industrial design—the practice of optimizing the function, value, and appearance of products—is a central component in America’s culture of consumerism as well as the source of many beautiful objects now in the collections of leading art and history museums. It has influenced the public sphere as well as the private economy, doing much to...
Ad for Cunningham Radio Tubes advertisement with an illustration of a man playing saxophone.
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
Roll up the rugs! Today, we're celebrating the invention of the saxophone, patented #OTD in 1846 ...
Roll up the rugs! Today, we're celebrating the invention of the saxophone, patented #OTD, June 28, in 1846 by the Belgian inventor and musician Antoine-Joseph "Adolphe" Sax (1814-1894), who also invented the less popular saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba. This April 1925 advertisement for E.T. Cunningham Inc. radio tubes was one of six in a series...
Color ilustration of an armless woman wearing a corset
Monday, June 27, 2022
Let's see ... head (check), neck (check), teeny tiny waist (check) ....
Let's see ... head (check), neck (check), teeny tiny waist (check), yeah, that's all the parts. Send it to print, boys! This image is from an 1893 pamphlet published as a souvenir of the Royal Worcester WCC exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The pamphlet touted the company's corsets ("fashion's most approved requisite") for...
Black and white glass negative showing a group of young people in 1880s beachwear seated on porch steps.
Friday, June 24, 2022
We're digging out some old summer vacation photos this Friday ....
We're digging out some old summer vacation photos this Friday. This ca. 1887 glass negative shows Lammot du Pont (1831-1884) with family and friends at a summer home retreat at No. 5 Beach Avenue in Cape May, New Jersey. The people in the photograph are (starting at the rear, left to right) Pierre S. du Pont, Louis du Pont, and Edith Booth; (...
Trade card for farm and garden tools. Color ilustration shows a planet Earth with farmers and tools.
Thursday, June 23, 2022
This ca. 1890(?) trade card is from Hagley Library's Fingerman ephemera collection ...
This ca. 1890(?)  trade card is from Hagley Library's Fingerman ephemera collection (Accession 2009.213).  Assembled by collectors Arlene and Gerald Fingerman, the collection consists of mixed-format ephemera from various endeavors within American culture, primarily the manufacturing and selling of products or services. Advertising cards like...

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