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.

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,...
The image shows a woman working in a textile factory, depicted in black and white.
Monday, September 30, 2024
September 30th marks the anniversary of the publication of U.S. Patent No. 9020702A, granted in 1902 to chemists ...
September 30th marks the anniversary of the publication of U.S. Patent No. 9020702A, granted in 1902 to chemists William H. Walker, Arthur D. Little and Harry S. Mork. The patent, for the process of "making of cellulose esters" was the first American patent for a man-made fiber. Soon after, the three also received Patent No. 712200A for "...
The image features a man wearing a sweater and standing outdoors. The photo is in black and white.
Monday, September 23, 2024
It's official! Fall is here!
It's official! Fall is here! We're enjoying the seasonal weather today with a nod to sweater season. This 1960 fashion photograph was commissioned by Joseph Bancroft & Sons Co. to feature a sweater made with the company's Ban-Lon yarn.  This item is part of the Hagley Library’s Joseph Bancroft & Sons Co. Miss America photographs (Accession...
Monday, September 16, 2024
We're keeping it clean this week with a selection from our collections ...
We're keeping it clean this week with a selection from our collections that we think is (laundry) loads of fun. Amazing Facts About Cleanliness and Health was published around 1960 as an advertising giveaway (cover price 10 cents) comic book for All, a Monsanto Company brand of laundry detergent, and promised to reveal to its readers the "...
Monday, September 9, 2024
​We're bringing some better living through chemistry to the cookie pushers in our audience today ....
​We're bringing some better living through chemistry to the cookie pushers in our audience today with this 1965 commercial for Teflon coated cookware from DuPont.  Teflon is a brand name for a synthetic fluoropolymer that was accidentally created in 1938 by DuPont employee Roy J. Plunkett in the company's Chemours Chambers Works plant in New...
Photograph of a protest. June Croll is speaking to the crowd of people. There is a sign in front of her that reads, "All war funds for the unemployed."
Monday, September 2, 2024
Hagley Library is closed for the Labor Day holiday, so we're posting today to celebrate ...
Hagley Library is closed for the Labor Day holiday, so we're posting today to celebrate the efforts and achievements of workers and the American labor movement today with this July 7, 1931 photograph of June Croll (1901-1967), a representative of the Communist-affiliated National Textile Workers Union, speaking at a Jobless March in New York City...
Monday, August 26, 2024
Oops!
Oops! We're a little late with this week's Hagley Vault post! But we're leaning into it and rolling with that pobody's nerfect spirit with a commercial for the grocery store chain Pick-n-Pay on "flubs". This ca. 1970 advertisement was made General Pictures Corporation, an industrial film studio founded by George Oliva, Jr. in Cleveland, Ohio in...
Daguerreotype of unidentified woman with veiling head-dress
Monday, August 19, 2024
This week marks a historic anniversary in the history of invention and photography ...
This week marks a historic anniversary in the history of invention and photography. On August 19, 1839, the French artist and inventor Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851) announced the invention of the daguerreotype photographic process, the first process to allow an image to be chemically fixed as a permanent picture. His work built on that...
Monday, August 12, 2024
Sunny days are here again - don't forget that SPF! 
Sunny days are here again - don't forget that SPF! This week's bright days inspired us to share this 1956 commercial advertising the General Electric sun lamp, an self-tanning bulb that for consumer in-home use. This video is part of Hagley Library's collection of Cinecraft Productions films (Accession 2019.227). Cinecraft Productions was founded...

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