The Hagley Vault

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

January 20, 2025
Cyanotype photo of a person sitting in a grassy field with trees and a large house in the background.

This 1893 cyanotype photograph was taken in Roxbury, Massachusetts; a handwritten note identifies it as "The Whiting Place". The image is part of a photograph album created by Louis Edward Levy (1846-1919) and Max Levy (1857-1926), two brothers whose parents brought them to the United States from Bohemia in 1854.


After studying and working in the fields of architecture, mathematics, astronomy, and microscope photography, the brothers worked together to found a photoengraving business in Baltimore in 1875. In 1877, they moved to Philadelphia and reorganized the firm as the Levytype Company. Here, they formally introduced their invention of a new photochemical engraving process, jointly patented on January 4, 1875, which they called “Levy-type”.

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Archive

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

Cyanotype photo of a person sitting in a grassy field with trees and a large house in the background.
Monday, January 20, 2025
This 1893 cyanotype photograph was taken in Roxbury, Massachusetts ...
This 1893 cyanotype photograph was taken in Roxbury, Massachusetts; a handwritten note identifies it as "The Whiting Place". The image is part of a photograph album created by Louis Edward Levy (1846-1919) and Max Levy (1857-1926), two brothers whose parents brought them to the United States from Bohemia in 1854. After studying and working in the...
Monday, January 13, 2025
Turns out, there's a lot of things you can put in bags.
Turns out, there's a lot of things you can put in bags. This paean to plastic is one of nine ca. 1960 commercials for the Pactiv Corporation's 'Baggies' branded plastic bags. Baggies were the first commercially produced plastic storage bags for food (and other items!) and were sometimes marketed using the great tagline "You'll like them".  The...
Black and white image of an arbor and pine trees in the snow at Longwood Gardens
Monday, January 6, 2025
Hagley Library is starting the week off with a snow day! 
Hagley Library is starting the week off with a snow day! To keep the winter wonderland spirit going, we're sharing this undated (ca. 1955?) photograph of an arbor in the snow at Longwood Gardens. The gardens had their roots in Peirce's Park, an arboretum created by Joshua (1766-1851) and Samuel Peirce (1766-1838), who planted their collections of...
Photograph of the Railroad Depot that served as Jimmy Carter Presidential Campaign Headquarters in Plains, Georgia.
Monday, December 30, 2024
We're posting this ca. 1976 postcard today in honor of President and Nobelist Jimmy Carter ...
We're posting this ca. 1976 postcard today in honor of President and Nobelist Jimmy Carter. This railroad depot in Plains, Georgia served as the central hub for Carter's national presidential campaign in 1976 and was where he celebrated his win on election night. The depot was built in 1888. Today, it stands as the oldest building in the city of...
Monday, December 23, 2024
We're decking the halls of the internet this week ....
We're decking the halls of the internet this week with a 1956 advertisement for General Electric string lights and bulbs. The commercial is part of Hagley Library's collection of Cinecraft Productions films (Accession 2019.227). Cinecraft Productions was founded in 1939 by Ray Culley (1904-1983) and Betty (Buehner) Culley (1914-2016) in Cleveland...
Image of a Lard, Tallow, and Fruit-Press. Title reads "Essence of Beef"
Monday, December 16, 2024
Struggling to find a holiday gift for the person who has everything?
Struggling to find a holiday gift for the person who has everything? Consider essence of beef. They probably don't have that. This undated photograph is part of Hagley Library's collection of Carter Litchfield photographs and ephemera on the history of fatty materials (Accession 2007.227). In addition to writing and publishing about the history of...
Monday, December 9, 2024
We're in the midst of some of the busiest travel days of the year, so it seems a fine time to share this 1930 travel footage ...
We're in the midst of some of the busiest travel days of the year, so it seems a fine time to share this 1930 travel footage from Hagley Library's collection of RCA Camden records (Accession 2464.76). The film documents the Sommerer family's travels, beginning with domestic scenes at home in Camden, New Jersey and follows our travelers via train...
Monday, December 2, 2024
Brr!! Winter weather has arrived ....
Brrr!!! Winter weather has arrived on the grounds of Hagley Library. We're taking inspiration from this ca. 1955? photograph today and bundling up. This image shows a research team at E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company's Haskell Laboratory working in their "all weather room", where DuPont researchers studied body reactions at extremely high and...
Black and white photograph of an older woman removing a turkey from an oven
Monday, November 25, 2024
This week, we're observing the upcoming holiday (and all the accompanying labor in the kitchen) ...
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...
Close-up of a vintage brochure for telephone etiquette. A young woman, styled in the mid-20th century fashion with a bouffant hairstyle and wearing a blouse with a lace collar, is depicted holding a rotary-style telephone
Monday, November 18, 2024
On this date, November 18, in 1963, Bell Telephone began offering the world's first commercial service ...
On this date, November 18, in 1963, Bell Telephone began offering the world's first commercial service for an electronic push-button, touch-tone telephone. Service was initially limited to customers in the towns of Carnegie and Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Bell System customers who paid an additional fee for the service received a touch-tone ...
Illustration of a large, anthropomorphic frog with glasses and a cigar. Text reads "Dr. Strangefrog"
Monday, November 11, 2024
Could it really be Monday? How strange ...
Could it really be Monday? How strange ... we're meeting again in the Hagley Vault today to bring you this ca. 1973 advertisement for newspaper advertising. The "big frog in small towns" ad campaign was created by the Philadelphia advertising firm Gray & Rogers for the 'Grit', a weekly newspaper serving small, rural markets. The ads ran in...
Monday, November 4, 2024
We're taking inspiration from this week's election and sharing a 1959 installment of 'The Ohio Story' featuring Victoria Claflin Woodhull ...
We're taking inspiration from this week's election and sharing a 1959 installment of 'The Ohio Story' featuring Victoria Claflin Woodhull, a stockbroker, newspaper editor, suffragist, and the first woman to announce her candidacy for President of the United States. This short biographical film covered Claflin Woodhull's early life, her marriages,...
Broadside advertising a 'Life-preserving Coffin in Doubtful Cases of Death'
Monday, October 28, 2024
The spookiest week of the year brings us this 1844 broadside from Baltimore ...
The spookiest week of the year brings us this 1844 broadside from Baltimore, which advertised the invention of a "Life-preserving Coffin in Doubtful Cases of Death". Being buried alive was a common fear and fascination during this time; the same year this broadside was created, Edgar Allen Poe also responded to this public interest with the...
. A vibrant poster featuring a tiger poised to leap, accompanied by the phrase "Ready to Spring."
Monday, October 21, 2024
Oops! We're a little late updating the Hagley Vault this week ...
Oops! We're a little late updating the Hagley Vault this week. Fortunately, the stakes are probably lower than the workers this poster was intended for.  This 1929 poster was created by the artist Willard Frederick Elms (1900-1956) for Mather & Company, a printing company based out of Chicago, Illinois. During the 1920s, the company, inspired...
Monday, October 14, 2024
The phenakistiscope was a popular 19th century parlor toy ...
The phenakistiscope was a popular 19th century parlor toy that relied on optical illusion to create one of the earliest forms of animated entertainment. Invented simultaneously in 1832 by physicist Joseph Plateau in Brussels and by mathematician Simon von Stamper in Berlin, the device was marketed under slightly more pronounceable monikers such as...
Monday, October 7, 2024
It's starting to feel like Fall on the Hagley grounds, and we love to see it ...
It's starting to feel like Fall on the Hagley grounds, and we love to see it. So this week, we're sharing this October 1957 issue of Avon Product's Outlook, the company's in-house magazine for its' sales representatives that contained motivational essays, updates on new and discontinued product lines, and instructional materials. Avon Products,...

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