Hagley owns a significant collection of historic artifacts and archives about the invention, production, and marketing of nylon, the synthetic fiber that made a major impact on the fashion industry in the 20th century. The “30 Days of Nylon” campaign at the Hagley Vault will give online visitors an opportunity to view interesting selections from our historic research collection.

If you would like to see all of the items from the library collections that we have digitized, visit the Hagley Digital Archives.

Eli Emory Hendrick. Engraving by Charles B. Hall, New York.

Eli Emory Hendrick founded the Hendrick Manufacturing Company in 1885, another commercial concern in a long string of business ventures. It was noted that

in the development of the business of this company Mr. Hendrick’s inventive genius and marked ability along mechanical lines have had full sway and are seen at their best. No mechanical problem is too difficult for him to undertake, and he spares neither time nor money until he has accomplished everything he sets out to do along these lines, his tenacity of purpose and perseverance being marked characteristics.¹

Hendrick would need those characteristics as the owner of an early automobile. His letterpress copybook in the Hagley Library collection containing his outgoing correspondence (1899-1903) is a surprisingly wonderful resource for examining the rise of the automobile in America.

Hendrick is quite representative of early motorists in the United States. Contrary to popular belief, businessmen, doctors and engineers led the automobile revolution in America.² Though they were drawn by its promise of efficiency and its fascinating technology, just as many wanted to be at the leading edge of contemporary fashion. Hendrick wrote, “If a man wants an automobile at all he wants it when they first come out, before the fad is worn out by his friends all having one before him.”³ The automobile was a fitting accessory for the successful modern man of the Progressive Era.⁴

Electric, steam or gasoline? At the time Hendrick purchased his car, sometime in June 1899, the three types enjoyed about equal popularity, with steamers and electric automobiles slightly in the lead.⁵ From the beginning, most automobile manufacturers had more orders than they could possibly fill, and Hendrick had to wait about a year for the delivery of his car.⁶ As the delay grew Hendrick went from hopeful optimism, “[I] shall expect it everyday until it arrives;” to biting sarcasm, “I expect you shall redeem this promise of shipping it Wednesday, and if you do it will be the first one. I shall be astonished;” to outright antipathy, “When you found you could not build it in any decent time you should have told me and let me get my goods elsewhere, but you chose to keep promising month after month when I now know you had no more expectation of fulfilling those promises than I have of being a woman.”⁷ The car finally arrived between May 22 and June 11, 1900. Hendrick’s troubles were just beginning.

“If there is anything that is more exasperating and a nuisance than an automobile, I don’t know what it is,” Hendrick complained.⁸ Early motorists not only had to learn how to operate the new machine, they also suffered through unrealistic expectations, broken parts, and the ignominy of getting stuck. Hendrick wrote,

Yesterday, I went down to the valley four miles and got stuck on my return. I got out and pushed, and enlisted a cordon of boys and men to help me along until I struck a butcher’s shop where I telephoned to my coachman to bring horses, carriages and ropes to tow me in. I was certainly a nice spectacle being towed by my carriage. I felt as guilty as though I was being towed to the lockup by a policeman.⁹

Hendrick ultimately found the electric automobile unsatisfactory and decided to purchase a steam car from the Boston Automobile Company.

At first, Hendrick had no better luck with his steamer, “I have a steam carriage that does not suit me, built by some Maine Yankee who entirely disregarded instructions and orders. Said yes to anything that I asked, but gave me nothing that I wanted.”¹⁰ Hendrick found his background as an inventor and manufacturer especially helpful at this point. He could repair and improve his automobile as he saw fit with parts from companies such as the White Sewing Machine Company and the American Bicycle Company.

I have tinkered with it more or less making changes and think I have it in pretty good shape now. At all events I like it much more than the electric. When I get through tinkering with it and find out just exactly what I want I think I will build one or have one built that exactly meets my views…I can buy the engine, boiler, body and all the gearing and have it put together here, and perhaps get what I want.¹¹

Aside from automobile manufacturers there were few concerns dedicated solely to motor cars. The automobile was comprised of parts that had other uses and a mechanic was often a person used to working on other types of machinery such as farm equipment.¹² Hendrick enjoyed the process of experimentation, developing and improving products and processes. These qualities stood him in good stead as he met the challenge of the automobile.

Despite the problems Hendrick had experienced, by 1903 he could finally enjoy his labors. He wrote to his brother,

I have an automobile and spend a good deal of time about the country. Pennsylvania roads are not the best, but still I extract a lot of fun in sailing around over the hills and stony roads. I intend to ship the machine to California about the first of December and follow it about the first of January. The roads in California are far superior to Pennsylvania roads and I anticipate a lot of fun out of the machine there.¹³

Hendrick could be caustic and impatient, but maybe he can be excused for his brusqueness in light of his passion for the automobile. A man made heartbroken over the late shipment of tires, perhaps deserves more sympathy than censure.¹⁴ It was not easy to be an automobile owner in the early days, but that didn’t deter Hendrick and others like him who, once having fallen in love with the automobile, could no more rein in their obvious enthusiasm than they could turn back time. Automobile culture would change America. The automobile craze would improve roads, transform the landscape, and modernize manufacturing. Through the pages of Hendrick’s letterbook, we can be transported to the point where it all began, to the start of the automobile age in America.

Read all selections related to the automobile from Hendrick’s letterbook in the Hagley Digital Archives

Danya Pilgrim is a graduate student at University of Delaware. She completed an internship with Hagley’s Digital Collections Department in the Fall.

SOURCES
¹ Horace Edwin Hayden, Alfred Hand and John W. Jordan, eds., Genealogical and Family History of the Wyoming and Lackawanna Valleys, Pennsylvania, (New York: Lewis Publishing Company, 1906), 2:95.
² James J. Flink, America Adopts the Automobile, 1895-1910, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970), 70-71.
³ Hendrick to American Electric Vehicle Company, May 22, 1900.
⁴ This Fabulous Century, 1900-1910, ed. Maitland A. Edey, (New York: Time-Life Books, 1969), 38.
⁵ Flink, 234.
⁶ Ibid., 294.
⁷ Hendrick to American Electric Vehicle Company, May 5, 1900; Hendrick to American Electric Vehicle Company, May 15, 1900; Hendrick to American Electric Vehicle Company, May 22, 1900.
⁸ Hendrick to International Automobile Vehicle Tire Company, September 25, 1901.
⁹ Hendrick to American Electric Vehicle Company, June 18, 1900.
¹⁰ Hendrick to American Bicycle Company, March 8, 1901.
¹¹ Hendrick J. G. McKinney, January 14, 1901.
¹² Flink, 295.
¹³ Hendrick to Edmund Hendrick, November 4, 1903.
¹⁴ Hendrick to Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, September 1, 1900.

Maybe you still have data on a piece of obsolete media like the ones listed above, though. Do you have the hardware to access it? If so, will your computer read the disk? It may be physically damaged or formatted incorrectly. What if your computer can read the disk but cannot open the files because you don’t own a copy of the obsolete software they were created in? Even if you can find a copy of that software, you may not be able to install it on your computer if it isn’t compatible with the operating system.

As new technologies appear, older ones become obsolete. Since people are dependent on software and machines to access digital content, the growing obsolescence of electronic media and software is a huge obstacle to preserving the data that documents not only your own life history but history at large. Unlike paper records that can survive for thousands of years in the right environment untouched, digital records have an expiration date and require constant attention to preserve their content.

Now, imagine if you lost all your electronic records, all those pieces of information that help to define you. Not only you, but your family and friends would be affected by that loss of data. The importance of preserving your own born-digital content is clear but libraries and archives around the world are forced to address this problem on a much larger scale. At Hagley Museum and Library, many of our collections span the last three decades, years that saw a rapid increase in computer usage and recently, a gradual shift to a paperless office environment. Our collections also include the records of companies still in operation. In order to provide an accurate and comprehensive history of American enterprise, Hagley is dedicated to actively collecting documents of research value in digital format. This means we are now faced with the challenge of preserving those records so they are accessible to researchers today and far into the future.

The Digital Collections Department at Hagley is addressing this challenge by building a digital preservation program focused on safeguarding electronic records of enduring value. Digital preservation is an ongoing, multi-step process that offers a solution for ensuring continued access to born-digital content. Although digital preservation is still a somewhat new and developing field, guidelines that are generally accepted in the professional archival community, do exist. For example, upon file transfer, archivists should record technical and descriptive information to provide context and ensure continued integrity of the data. After running a virus scan, several copies are created and stored in different locations to reduce the risk of corruption. It is also important to restrict access to files to minimize the chance of a privacy or security breach. Once they are processed and open for research, access copies will be created for that purpose. Migrating obsolete file formats to current, more accessible formats is another key part of most digital preservation programs.

Unfortunately, most small to midsize archival repositories like Hagley don’t have the budget, staff time, or storage space to address the challenge of safeguarding their digital-born content. They are able to incorporate a few digital preservation strategies but ongoing maintenance consumes their resources. As a result, they are in dire need of finding secure and affordable solutions. Fortunately, new products are becoming available for repositories that do not possess the resources to build and sustain their own custom, in-house system.

Hagley recently selected one of these products, Preservica, a cloud-based service offered by Tessella, to manage our born-digital records. Preservica offers a secure, affordable, and extensible solution for libraries and archives of all sizes. Being a production-ready, out-of-the-box system with a user-friendly design and low learning curve, Preservica is particularly ideal for small to midsize repositories like Hagley. Preservica safeguards Hagley’s born-digital records by storing numerous copies in a highly secure environment where they are routinely checked for corruption or decay, virtually eliminating data loss. It includes a comprehensive, routinely updated suite of migration tools to convert obsolete file formats to current, more accessible ones. It could be used as an access tool for researchers since it offers full-text search and browse functions. Preservica also makes it convenient to manage our born-digital content remotely via a web-based interface.

Preservica is built on Tessella’s Safety Deposit Box (SDB) platform, which was originally implemented by the UK National Archives in 2003 and is now used by some of the world’s leading archives and libraries such as the National Library of Australia, Swiss Federal Archives, and FamilySearch International. SDB has primarily been used by European repositories but interest in Preservica is growing since the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives and the Archives of Michigan also adopted Preservica as their digital preservation system.

By setting up a digital preservation infrastructure here at Hagley, we can provide support for the active collecting of electronic records documenting American enterprise. We will move into the twenty-first century as a leading library and archive by ensuring continued access to digital materials and providing researchers with a more comprehensive view of business history, something that paper records alone cannot provide. In turn, Hagley has the unique opportunity to be a leader for other independent research libraries collecting born-digital records.

Abby Adams is Assistant Curator of Digital Collections at Hagley Museum and Library

Hagley Museum and Library has a collection of World’s Fair memorabilia, and has digitized many World’s Fair images. Using Historypin’s keyword search, I searched for World’s Fair images already pinned to the map, and found that many other institutions had pinned their collections of World’s Fair photographs. There are pins from institutions such as Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at The Art Institute of Chicago, Missouri History Museum, San Francisco MTA Archives, Library of Congress, Museum of the City of New York, Mirrorpix Archives, and University of Washington, as well as historic photographs of World’s Fairs pinned by individuals. The images pinned by other institutions combined with the images in the Hagley Digital Archives cover the fairs of 1853, 1876, 1893, 1904, 1915, 1926, 1939, 1951, 1962, and 1964, held in various cities in the United States as well as in London.

On the Hagley Museum and Library Historypin channel are photos of World’s Fairs from 1853 and 1876, among others. The New York Crystal Palace exhibition in 1853 was the first unofficial Worlds Fair held in the United States, called the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations. The Crystal Palace was modeled after the London World’s Fair two years prior. At the 1853 World’s Fair, the first safety elevator was demonstrated. The Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876 was the first official World’s Fair held in the United States. Officially the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine, the World’s Fair celebrated the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in the U.S.

The Missouri History Museum has pinned photographs from the 1904 World’s Fair. In 1904 the Olympics and the World’s Fair, or Louisiana Purchase Exposition, were both held in St. Louis. The Olympics were planned as a part of the World’s Fair, so the games became more of a side-show than their own event. They were the first Olympic games held in the United States, but the games were overshadowed by the World’s Fair’s myriad attractions.

World’s Fairs were often used to launch new products and inventions. For example, at the New York World’s Fair in 1939, the DuPont Company introduced Nylon stockings. The exhibit included scientists demonstrating the Nylon knitting machine. DuPont also hired models wearing dresses and skirts to show off the new product.

Perhaps the most well-known World’s Fair held in the U.S. was the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition, so named for the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World in 1492. Among the attractions at the World’s Columbian Exposition was the first Ferris Wheel. The Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at The Art Institute of Chicago have pinned a photo of the Ferris Wheel on Historypin, which was the focal point of the exhibition, at 264-foot tall.

World’s Fairs were responsible for the construction of many other grandiose structures, such as the Space Needle in Seattle and the Unisphere in New York. The Space Needle was constructed for the 1962 World’s Fair, and the Unisphere for the 1964-65 World’s Fair. Though most buildings at World’s Fairs were intended to be temporary, both of these monuments are still standing today.

Check out Hagley Museum and Library’s Historypin channel to see collections of of the 1939 World’s Fair, 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, and all World’s Fair photographs on Historypin.

Della Hall is a graduate student at the University of Delaware

This summer, I selected more than 250 images from the Hagley Digital Archive to add to Historypin. In the selection process, I first focused on images from the Gentieu Collection of Brandywine River Valley Images, choosing images from 1880-1920 taken by photographer and former DuPont Company employee Pierre Gentieu. I was interested in forming a snapshot of what it would have been like to work in the DuPont Company black powder yards in the late 1800s, and I particularly wanted to find photos of the structures that no longer stand. But photographs of structures on the grounds did not tell the full story, so I expanded my search beyond the Gentieu Collection to include churches, schools, taverns, shops, and even other nearby mills and industries. This gave me a fuller understanding of the community of workers on the Brandywine in northern Delaware at the height of the American Industrial Revolution.

Using the timeline slider helps narrow down results on Historypin map.

The main feature of Historypin is the map. Photographs are pinned to the map using the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates of the location they were taken. The map shows the location of the photographs in time, so it is possible to narrow down the years of the photographs visible on the map using a timeline slider.  Some photographs that were taken from the street can be overlaid on Google street view. Since most of the photographs are on the Hagley Museum grounds, I was only able to do a street view overlay for 17 of the images. Here are a few examples: Alexis I. DuPont School, Wilmington Train Station, Washington Avenue and Concord Street Solgas Truck Accident, and Rockland Bridge.

Another important part of Historypin is the story behind the photograph. I did a lot of my research in the Hagley Digital Archives, pulling stories from the photograph descriptions and captions written by the photographer. I also gathered stories by going outside (I am a big proponent of experiencing history outdoors). I had taken a tour of Hagley before, but with the historic photographs in mind, I looked at the grounds with new interest, walking every inch of the property I could access. I drove downstream from Hagley to see for myself Breck’s Mill, Walker’s Mill, and the former covered bridge at Rising Sun Lane (I even got one of my carpool buddies to jump out of the car and take a photograph of the plaque on the new steel bridge). As I gathered more stories, I found that the stories for other photographs changed with the new perspective I gained. And by venturing outdoors to find the history, I was able to easier pin the photographs on the map in an area that is entirely tree-covered from an aerial view today (but was not when the DuPont Company black powder mills were running).

After pinning the photographs to the map with their stories, I dove into the other features of Historypin: collections and tours. I made two collections: one called The Industrial Brandywine in Delaware, and another titled On the Grounds of the Hagley Museum and Library. Having taken Hagley’s Powder Yard Trail self-guided tour, which is written in walking order for guests, I wanted to create a tour on Historypin that explained black powder-making in the order of the process. In the Historypin tour, Making Black Powder in the DuPont Company Powder Yards, putting the steps in order of the process helped me better understand what a day in the Hagley Yard might be like. I next made a tour of the photographs of fires and explosions in the DuPont Company black powder yards, which I found to be both fascinating and terrifying. These images definitely changed the way I looked at the peaceful, beautiful Hagley grounds I worked in every day. Next, I created a tour of Life of a Worker in the DuPont Company Black Powder Yards, which expands beyond the grounds of the Hagley Museum and contains many images of buildings that no longer stand. Lastly, I created an Industrial Brandywine in Delaware tour that begins at the northern-most dam on the Brandywine in Delaware, and follows the creek downstream until it empties into the Christina River.

There are many excellent channels on Historypin from which to pull inspiration. There are channels by institutions, such as the Smithsonian, and by individuals, such as Steve Clifford. Some channels have appealing designs, such as Bath in Time. To get ideas about what types of tours you can create with your own photographs, check out these tours: Washington Slept Here from the Connecticut State Library, The 1968 Democratic National Convention that includes a sound file from the U.S. National Archives, Lost Louisville from University of Louisville Photographic Archives, and Earthquake and Fire from San Francisco MTA Archives. To think about collections in a non-traditional way, check out the Women in the Military collection from the U.S. National Archives, or The Snow Collection created by Historypin using photos from many different channels. If you are interested in doing a local project and getting your community involved, take a look at Reading’s History local project, or if you just want to get involved as an individual, consider taking a modern photograph, or a repeat such as this one of a photograph from San Francisco MTA Archives.

The Historypin App for mobile devices allows you to see photographs pinned near you on a map.

Historypin is not only a website, but an App for mobile devices, so it is easy to get involved.

With the App, you can explore pins near you, post your own photos, and explore other collections.

The Hagley Museum and Library Historypin channel will continue to be added to; I have only created a launching pad for the project. I encourage visitors of the museum and people in the Wilmington area to get involved, too: take a tour, take a modern replica of a photograph, or create your own channel and post your own photos of the Brandywine area.

Della Hall, University of Delaware

Zebley, active in Delaware politics and real estate, was also an amateur photographer and local historian; he traveled extensively around Delaware, southeastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland photographing sites of historic significance, and later writing two books: Along the Brandywine in 1940 and Churches of Delaware in 1947.

Zebley photographed an enormous mix of subjects and places, including street scenes, rural views, parades, parks, public buildings, churches, beaches, rivers and bridges, automobile accidents, hotels, and estates, plus notable events such as the 1926 Sesqui-Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the wreck of the SS Morro Castle in Asbury Park, and the Armistice Parade through Wilmington celebrating the end of World War I.

The project to get the Zebley photographs online has been many years in the making; we are enormously grateful to volunteer Jean Abplanalp, who worked tirelessly, researching detailed descriptions for each photograph. This collection has long been a wonderful and well-used resource for local history researchers living in the Wilmington area, and we hope that many more folks will find and use the photographs now that they are available online!

LINK TO COLLECTION: http://cdm16038.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p268001coll36

Judy Stevenson is an archivist in the Pictorial Collections Department.

The first request was from a person who bought a vintage guitar and wanted to see a trade catalog from the instrument maker from that era. He called our reference desk, and we were able to provide a scan for him of a catalog (below), circa 1898, that is now available in the Hagley Digital Archives.

Gibson Guitars, Banjos, Mandolins, Ukuleles, Electric Instruments, Strings. Kalamazoo, Michigan, [1936?

One of the catalogs she used was from another Philadelphia company, H. H. Weyman, circa 1890. The catalog titled Retail Headquarters for Fine Musical Instruments is now available in the Hagley Digital Archives.

Catalog from Slingerland Banjo and Drum Company of Chicago, Illinois, circa 1940

The third person requested a more contemporary catalog (right), circa 1940, from the Slingerland Banjo and Drum Company of Chicago, Illinois. The cover features a snazzy-looking picture of Gene Krupa, the “King of Swing.” Again, we were able to offer remote reference service via email.

These three requests for three different purposes in a short amount of time started to make me wonder how many musical instrument trade catalogs were actually in our library catalog. There are twenty-three items listed under the subject heading of Musical instruments—Catalogs, but there are others in the collection under individual instruments, such as thirty-three items under Piano—Catalogs. There are additional catalogs for brass instruments, stringed instruments, guitars, banjos, and even one accordion catalog! I’m sure that there are more hidden gems to be mined by future explorers of our unique resources in the Imprints Department.

Linda Gross is reference librarian in the Imprints Department at Hagley Museum and Library.

Last month, we reported on the digitization of the Nation’s Business, a magazine published by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States from 1912 to 1999. One of the many fascinating elements to this important source is its detailed coverage of particular industries. In the pages of Nation’s Business, researchers can track the birth and evolution (and sometimes downfall) of specific business or industrial sectors. Many who wrote for the Nation’s Business were businessmen themselves or under the employ of the Chamber of Commerce. Few other sources provide historians such valuable insight into the development of business and industry through the point-of-view of the business person or business advocate.

The development of the aviation industry was the focus of many articles in the 1920s and 1930s. While virtually paging through the Nation’s Business for 1929, a year after Edsel Ford’s above proclamation, I found over a dozen articles about the burgeoning industry, as well as advertisements for aviation-related business. A year before, in 1928, the Nation’s Business published a map showing the routes of passenger air travel throughout the United States. The accompanying article touted this new system of travel for business:

“Here is the first complete air travel map which has been prepared.  It is much more than an air mail map. For the first time, a businessman may schedule his trips on a definite chart. All the romance of the early days of transcontinental rail laying is presented once more. It’s more than romance; it is concrete, actual, and in operation. To roads and rails is added a third major transportation system, a fact of which America is but vaguely aware….Air mail maps are now in use in many business houses. The publication of this travel map, however, is the first concrete evidence presented to business of the possibilities of nation-wide air travel…There is much in this map to stir the imagination…”  [Read the full article]

Nation's Business Map of the Air, 1928

In addition to articles about aviation, the Nation’s Business featured aviation-related advertisements in nearly every issue from 1929. The March issue alone included ads for an airplane manufacturer, a business that built airplane hangers, and an airport engineering firm.

The Mahoney-Ryan Aircraft Corporation, 1929

Richards-Wilcox Manufacturing Company, 1929

The Austin Company

In the June 1929 issue, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce advertised “favorable” conditions for aviation related business in “air-minded” Los Angeles County:

Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1929

Below is a list of links to articles relating to the aviation industry in the Nation’s Business from 1929:

Interior of a passenger plane, 1929

“Aviation Grows More Stable” (January 1929)

“Who Gave Us Our Modern Wonders?” (March 1929)

“The Way Business Uses the Airplane”  (March 1929)

“A New Era Dawns in Industry” (April 1929)

“Tomorrows Airports” (April 1929)

“Making the Public Air-Minded” (May 1929)

“The Airplane Frees a Continent: Winds are Solving South America’s Transportation Difficulties” (June 1929) 

“What the Auto Industry Thinks of Flying” (July 1929)

“What’s Next in Ocean Travel?” (July 1929)

“Look Before you Invest in Flying” (August 1929)

“Why Overlook the Seaplane?” (August 1929)

“What’s New in Aviation?” (August 1929)

“The Growing Pains of Aviation” (September 1929)

“Plane Builders Become Exporters” (December 1929)

This list is far from complete, search for more articles related to aviation in the entire run of the Nation’s Business now available online in the Hagley Digital Archives.

Every major event that shaped American politics and business, from World War I to the early days of the internet age, is documented in the pages of the Nation’s Business. Many issues of pressing concern to the business community today, such as state-business relations, have roots in earlier periods and can be studied as they evolved during the 20th century. While politics is a common theme throughout The Nation’s Business, articles also cover the evolution of workplace technology, the development of new methods for marketing products and services to consumers, and the emergence of influential labor unions during the last century.

The project was funded through the generous support of the Chamber of Commerce as part of their 100th anniversary celebration. In addition to the digitization of the Nation’s Business, Hagley has curated an exhibit that will be installed this spring at the Chamber’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., and run through the summer. It will then be moved and re-open on September 7, 2012 at the Hagley Museum and Library in Delaware. The exhibit will feature images from the collection of original photographs from The Nation’s Business magazine.

You can view and learn more about the Nation’s Business photographs in a companion digital exhibit hosted on Hagley’s website.

We expect to have every page of the Nation’s Business available for research in Hagley’s Digital Collections by the end of April. Currently, we have scanned over 85,000 pages and uploaded 900 issues. Jennifer Matthews, Elizabeth Fite, and Marina Dobronovskaya performed all of the scanning and added the metadata for the Digital Collections Department. Interestingly, two of the issues had to be scanned from microfilm since an extant copy could not be found. Six of the volumes, initially believed to be missing, were found in the collection of the Wilmington Public Library and donated to Hagley.

While we still have issues from approximately ten years left to scan, the collection is online and available for researchers. Visit the homepage for collection.

Next month, we will post an article here with some interesting finds uncovered during the Nation’s Business digitization project.

The collection of online Civil War items contains nearly two-hundred pieces of correspondence from du Pont family members, including Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont, Henry A. du Pont, and Sophie Du Pont. Their letters discuss the Delaware home front, national and local politics, business at the DuPont powder yards, and matters pertaining to the life of Civil War soldiers.

Portion of the 1863 Muster Roll of Company B, 5th Regiment Delaware Volunteers. Click to view the full item in the Digital Archives

Fifty-nine documents related to Company B of the 5th Delaware Regiment, commanded by Lammot du Pont, are part of this online collection. Among the digitized items are muster rolls that give the names of men who served in Company B. Many of these volunteers also worked in the DuPont Company powder yards during the war.

Hagley’s online Civil War Collection also includes a variety of period photographs. Notable among these are forty images of Fort Wagner on Morris Island, South Carolina, taken after Union forces captured the Fort in September 1863. This site is portrayed at the dramatic end of the film “Glory” about the 54th Massachusetts Regiment (a famous African-American unit) which suffered heavy casualties in their July 18, 1863 assault on the Fort.

One of the forty images from Fort Wagner in the Hagley Digital Archives.

This is just a small sampling of Hagley’s outstanding collections related to the Civil War. Hagley welcomes researchers to use this material for study. If you have any questions, please use our Ask Hagley online form.

For those in the Wilmington area, An Oath of Allegiance to the Republic: The du Ponts and the Civil War exhibit is open at the Hagley Visitor Center until July 22.

For those unable to visit the exhibit in person, we produced two online companion exhibits: Robert Smalls: Former Slave and Civil War Hero and Soldiers and Powdermen, with biographies of soldiers who served with du Pont family members during the war.

View all items in the Hagley Civil War Digital Collection