The Hagley Vault

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

November 25, 2024
Black and white photograph of an older woman removing a turkey from an oven

This week, we're observing the upcoming holiday (and all the accompanying labor in the kitchen) with this ca. 1932 photograph from our Edward J.S. Seal photographic reproductions (Accession 1971.336) collections.


Edward James Shimer Seal (1896-1955) was a farmer and photographer. The son of Howard Ellsworth Seal (1859-1940) and Annie Lincoln Shimer Seal (1864-1920), he grew up on Locust Knoll Farm in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Later in his life, Seal owned Wilmington Camera Shop in Wilmington, Delaware. The woman in this photograph, taken at the family homestead on Locust Knoll Farm, is his sister-in-law Estelle, who married his brother William in 1914.

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Archive

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

Illustrated postcard depicting the Dutch Mill Restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin
Monday, September 4, 2023
Hagley Library is closed on Monday, September 4th in observation of the Labor Day holiday ...
Hagley Library is closed on Monday, September 4th in observation of the Labor Day holiday. If you're looking for somewhere else to spend the day on Monday, may we recommend Madison, Wisconsin's Dutch Mill Restaurant? This ca. 1929 postcard notes that the restaurant, "open from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. from June 1st to Labor Day" (and open 6 a.m. to 1 a.m...
Monday, August 28, 2023
According to the internet, we (or someone) will be celebrating "More Herbs, Less Salt Day" on August 29th ...
According to the internet, we (or someone) will be celebrating "More Herbs, Less Salt Day" on August 29th. The holiday was invented by Wellcat Herbs, a small manufacturer of herbal products in Pennsylvania, and a prolific source of made-up internet holidays. Before you ditch the shaker, though, the Morton Salt Company would like a word! The clip...
Hand illustrated drawing of a plan for a fortified settlement.
Monday, August 21, 2023
Considering the benefits of a personal home moat? Hagley Library's Digital Archive is delivering some DIY battlement inspo this week ...
Considering the benefits of a personal home moat? Hagley Library's Digital Archive is delivering some DIY battlement inspo this week with this selection from its newest digital collection. The volume Fortification Régulière de Mr. Maréchal de Vauban probably dates to around the first quarter of 18th century and contains 105 plates of drawings...
Page from a mass mailing letter about the dangers of smoking
Monday, August 14, 2023
One of Hagley Library's newest digital collections offers a curated selection of materials ...
One of Hagley Library's newest digital collections offers a curated selection of materials from our collection of Charles Brelsford McCoy papers (Accession 1815).  Charles "Brel" Brelsford McCoy (1909-1995) served as the president of the DuPont Company from 1967 to 1973 and as chairman of its board of directors from 1971 to 1973. The collection...
Cover of a catalog for dairy cattle feed and medicine titled OH Cow Book. Inset black and white photograph of dairy workers and cattle.
Monday, August 7, 2023
This week will mark the anniversary of America's first full-time appointment of an Inspector of Milk, a position created in the city of Boston ...
This week will mark the anniversary of America's first full-time appointment of an Inspector of Milk, a position created in the city of Boston on August 10th in 1859. The job was created and funded via a state law intended to prevent fraud in the dairy industry; dairy farmers and distributors caught selling poor quality, adulterated, or...
Photocollage advertising a women's baseball game played by employees of the Westinghouse company.
Monday, July 31, 2023
Are you rooting for the Beauties or the Peaches this summer?
Are you rooting for the Beauties or the Peaches this summer? This advertisement for a baseball game played by the women employees of the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company's South Philadelphia Works was created in 1921. It is part of Hagley Library’s collection of Westinghouse Electric Corporation Steam Division photographs (...
Wanamaker catalog cover for summer 1925 showing illustration of a woman with a parasol and red dress sitting barefoot on a small stone bridge
Monday, July 24, 2023
We're revisiting the summer fashions of 1925 this week ...
We're revisiting the summer fashions of 1925 this week in the Hagley Vault, with a little help from John Wanamaker and a catalog full of "delightful frocks", "prevailing Paris fashions", "smart summer hats", "charming underthings", "bathing togs" and "King Baby's Royal Necessities". Marketing pioneer John Wanamaker (1838-1922) opened his...
Ad featuring an anthropomorphic cellophane in a desert. Text warns of storing cellophane near heat.
Monday, July 17, 2023
I feel ya' buddy ... we're all looking to beat the heat this month ...
I feel ya' buddy ... we're all looking to beat the heat this month, some more than others. For those of you not safely ensconced in Hagley Library's delightfully air-conditioned reading room, stay safe and try not to dry out, seal together, or otherwise go the way of cellophane. Cellophane was invented Jacques E. Brandenberger (1872-1954) in 1908...
Rough black and white sketch of an industrial site.
Monday, July 10, 2023
The newest digital collection to debut in the Hagley Digital Archive focuses on the life and career of Alice Hamilton ...
The newest digital collection to debut in the Hagley Digital Archive focuses on the life and career of Alice Hamilton (1869-1970), a physician, research scientist, and social-welfare reform activist who specialized in the field of occupational health. Hamilton earned her doctorate of medicine degree from the University of Michigan in 1893....
Postcard featuring two yelling children with flags and a gun and fireworks exploding behind them.
Monday, July 3, 2023
Hurrah! The glorious 4th of July! Hurrah!
Hurrah! The glorious 4th of July! Hurrah! Hagley Library is celebrating Indepdence Day this week with a selection from our collection of Fireworks and Firecracker postcards (Accession 2002.240). This small collection offers postcards with views of fireworks or firecrackers. Many, unsurprisingly, are Fourth of July greetings with patriotic or...
Two women on a lawn with a bicycle in front of St. Amour, a du Pont family home.
Monday, June 26, 2023
This week marks a moment in transportation history; on June 26, 1819 ....
This week marks a moment in transportation history; on June 26, 1819 the U.S. Patent Office issued its first patent for a velocipede, a bicycle-like invention created by William K. Clarkson, Jr. of New York. While he received the first U.S. patent, Clarkson wasn't the first to build a predecessor to the modern bicycle. For example, in 1791, Comte...
Cartoon featuring unidentified DuPont Company employee juggling various company research projects
Monday, June 19, 2023
This ca. 1925 cartoon shows an unidentified employee of the DuPont Company ...
This ca. 1925 cartoon shows an unidentified employee of the DuPont Company juggling some of the company's various research projects. While the company began as a manufacturer of gunpowder in 1802, this work soon expanded into various other explosive materials. By 1904, the company had begun to manufacture paint and photographic products. In 1914...
Monday, June 12, 2023
This clip comes from the 1948 industrial film "The Talking Hoist" ...
This clip comes from the 1948 industrial film "The Talking Hoist", produced by Fuller & Smith & Ross, Inc. and Cinecraft, Inc. for the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company. We're sharing it this week on the occasion of the anniversary of one of fourteen patents by the inventor Linus Yale, Sr. (1797-1858).  Yale's history as a patent...
Black and white image showing a crowd assembled at the start of a hot air balloon race. A number of grounded balloons are in the image.
Monday, June 5, 2023
This past weekend marked a historic highlight in aviation history ...
This past weekend marked a historic highlight in aviation history. One June 4th, 1783 the brothers Joseph-Michel (1740-1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (1745-1799) conducted the first public demonstration of a new technology. While the two brothers earned their living running a paper factory they had inherited from their father, they both...
Color glass negative of poppies.
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Red poppies have been associated with Memorial Day since 1920 ...
Red poppies have been associated with Memorial Day since 1920, when the bloom became the official flower used by the American Legion to memorialize soldiers who fought and died in war. The organization launched a national program to distribute the flowers in 1924. The poppy was chosen on account of the poem “In Flanders Fields”, written in 1915 by...
Black and white image of a young woman holding a strange object up to her eyes.
Monday, May 22, 2023
We're presenting you with a little mystery this week ...
We're presenting you with a little mystery this week! May 22nd marks the birthdate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which seems like a fine opportunity to test our skills of deduction and detection. The invention shown here was featured in a February 1943 issue of Nation's Business. Can you guess what it was intended to do? Nation’s Business was a...

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