Stories From The Stacks

Historians of interior design are only just beginning to study the design of rooms that are not in buildings, but rather in machines: trains cars, elevators, jet planes, and many others. In his latest book project, Dr. Ronn Daniel, associate professor at Kent State University, explores the interior design of automobiles. Tracing changes in technology, marketing, and aesthetics, Daniel finds that the mid-twentieth century witnessed an explosion in the variety and cultural significance of auto interiors. Daniel’s book is under contract with the University of Virginia Press. In support of his work Daniel received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our donations page: https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/donor-form/?svcid=tcs&formId=c2f4e3f6-2d8a-4251-9a8b-cfdea1fe0e4a&envid=p-wY

The United States empire is unlike any other in history. Among its unique attributes is the ability of Americans to project power, extract resources, and exercise hegemony without direct control and ownership of territory. In his dissertation research, Henry Jacob, PhD candidate at Yale University, compares the American imperial projects in the Caribbean and Arctic regions to assess their similarities using multiple collections held in the Hagley library, including the National Foreign Trade Council papers. Jacob argues that the United States developed a technique of empire by rental, or real estate, which served the interests of American business and government. In support of his work Jacob received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our donations page: https://host.nx

Women own over 40% of businesses in the United States and are responsible for a large majority of new business startups. How did this come to be? Dr. Debra Michals, associate professor and chair of the humanities department at Merrimack College, answers this question in her book She’s the Boss: The Rise of Women’s Entrepreneurship Since World War II (Rutgers University Press, 2025). Contrary to popular misconceptions about feminism pushing women into business, Michals finds that economic need drove women into business. More surprisingly, Michals finds that sexism and racism increased the numbers of women entrepreneurs by limiting their access to economic resources by other means. In support of her work Dr. Michals received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our donations

Solar Challenger: Energy, Environment, and the Spectacle of Solar Aviation, 1976-1981 Ben Spohn interviews Karlyn Allenbrand about her ongoing dissertation research on the Solar Challenger, the world's first solar-powered airplane built by Dr. Paul MacCready's company AeroVironment. Allenbrand argues that from the start MacCready recognized that the Solar Challenger was a promotional project meant to highlight the potential of solar power and renewable energy rather than become a commercially viable alternative to fossil fuel burning aircraft. In addition to using photovoltaic cells for power, the aircraft was made in partnership with DuPont who had an interest in highlighting the viability of their plastic products. Karlyn Allenbrand is currently a Phd student at University of Delaware. For more Hagley History Hangouts, and more information on the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwri

Let’s say that poison gas leaks from a manufacturing plant, sickening workers and local residents. Should OSHA investigate, or the EPA? Who is responsible when both agencies have a claim to jurisdiction? The American federal government regulates the workplace and the non-workplace environments separately, despite their material inseparability; the workplace is part of the environment and vice versa. How and why did the American regulatory landscape come to have this awkward and contradictory split? Jasper Cattell, PhD candidate at Brown University, formulated this novel question and seeks an answer in his dissertation project. Cattell conducted research in the archives of labor organizations, environmental groups, federal agencies, and the business community. To get at the latter, Cattell visited the Hagley Library to examine the archives of the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other private business organizations. The messily drawn boundary between workplace and envir

Twentieth-century Chile relied heavily on its copper mining industry, which was vulnerable to disruption due to its dependance on foreign supplies of blasting powder. It was to address this strategic weakness that Chilean leaders formulated a plan to lure a powder manufacturer from the Global North to open a plant in Chile. In her latest research, Dr. Ángela Vergara, professor at California State University at Los Angeles, uncovers the story of DuPont in Chile, including its plant built to supply the domestic copper mining industry, and other business ventures like licensing DuPont synthetic textile technology to Chilean manufacturers. DuPont promoted its plant as a safe workplace with reduced risk of harm, but Dr. Vergara found evidence that workers suffered from respiratory and dermatological conditions, and blamed the plant environment. In support of her research, Dr. Vergara received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more in

From the 1750s to the present day, Salem Township in northeastern Pennsylvania has been a site of financial speculation and the social changes it sets in motion. In her latest book project, Dr. Nancy Campbell, professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, uncovers the many superimposed layers of speculation and extraction that have left Salem Township with a complex series of social legacies and infrastructures. From land wars and coal mines, to nuclear plants and data centers, Campbell traces three centuries of speculation in one small location. In support of her research Dr. Campbell received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.

In this episode of the Hagley History Hangout, Roger Horowitz interviews Rebecca Kobrin about her new book, Credit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and American Finance 1873-1930. From the publisher: "What are immigrants to do when business opportunities abound in their new home, but banks refuse essential financial support? How could they make the journey in the first place without helping hands? In this lively history, Rebecca Kobrin chronicles the turn-of-the-twentieth-century Jewish immigrants who stepped up by doing the lending themselves. Arriving from the Russian Empire and settling primarily in New York, they made livelihoods by assisting fellow Jews so they could purchase passage to the United States and, after arriving, obtain credit that other lenders would not dare provide. "Credit to the Nation traces the novel practices of bankers who not only enabled the flourishing of American Jewry but also revolutionized the US financial industry. Drawing on previously unexamined a

Images of bathers have recurred in art through the ages, and their depictions tell us something about attitudes toward human bodies, sex, gender, cleanliness, and much more. In his dissertation research, art historian Jay Buchanan, PhD candidate at Washington University in St. Louis, analyses images of bathers in bathtubs, swimming pools, beaches, and bathhouses to understand the changing cultural valence of bathing relevant to its sensual and sexual dimensions. Buchanan used several collections in the Hagley Library, including Ernst Dichter, Fingerman, William Pahlmann, and more, to recreate the material culture of bathing and swimming in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States. In support of his research, Buchanan received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, please visit us at hagley.org.

Does a strong economy serve the interests of the few or the many? The policy pendulum has swung in either direction over the long term. In his new book, The Menace of Prosperity: New York City and the Struggle for Economic Development, 1865-1981, Dr. Daniel Wortel-London, visiting assistant professor at Bard College, explores the debates over economic development strategies that raged in New York City over more than a century. Punctuated by fiscal crises, the history is one of competing claims on city resources, and more keenly, competing ideas of what policies best serve the city and its people. In support of his work, Wortel-London received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/underwriting-donation-tickets-1470779985529?a

Geophysics, or the study of Earth using the tools and methods of physics, is often understood to have begun in the post-WWII period. However, the period between the world wars saw ferment and innovation in the field, and the emergence of the term geophysics itself. In his latest research, Dr. Erik Isberg, postdoctoral researcher at the KTH Institute of Technology and the University of Copenhagen, uncovers the emergence of geophysics as a science and an international industry during the interwar period. Using the Sun oil collection held in the Hagley Library, Isberg found that intense basic research between the wars laid the foundation for the postwar revolutions in how we view and govern our world. In support of his work, Isberg received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visi

What happens when industrial towns lose their defining industries? How do the remaining communities and infrastructures find meaning and a future among the postindustrial remains. The key often lies in heritagization, the process by which certain aspects of the past are identified, preserved, and presented as heritage. In her dissertation research, Julia Silva de Medeiros, associate researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, compares the postindustrial heritagization processes in Serra do Navio, Brazil and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, both of which once had major metallurgical industries, mining manganese and making steel respectively. Silva de Medeiros shows that the values prevailing among decision makers get embedded in the heritage passed down to future generations. In support of her work Silva de Medeiros received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us o

Iowa State University historian Simon Cordery talks about his recently published biography of Albert Pullman with Hagley’s Ben Spohn. From the publisher: “Simon Cordery's Gilded Age Entrepreneur illuminates the fascinating and chaotic business world of Albert Pullman. The influential but little-known older brother of George Pullman and the craftsman of the family, Albert designed the first luxurious Pullman railroad cars and hosted promotional trips to show them off. In those heady early days, he met national business and political leaders and hired the first Pullman porters. “Albert and George made a formidable team, but as the Pullman Company grew, Albert's role shrank. He turned to his own investment portfolio, often with disastrous results. Beginning with the industrial laundry that cleaned sleeping-car linens, Albert appeared before the Supreme Court after a catastrophic insurance investment, ran afoul of federal banking regulations, and failed in an attempt to corner wheat futures. With evermore un

The overtly intimate relationship between tech industry leaders and politicians is on frequent display in newspapers and on screens today. In an international context, this builds on a long history of corporate involvement in shaping favorable policy. In his latest research, André Dao, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Melbourne, traces the long history of IBM and its predecessor the Tabulator Machine Company, as actors on the international stage, especially with respect to countries in the Global South. Using multiple collections held in the Hagley Library, Dao reveals a potential revolution amongst Third World countries vying to control multinational corporations and to foster their own computer industries, that was met and reversed by a counter revolution led by major Western firms and their institutional allies. In support of his work, Dr. Dao received finding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information and more Hagle

The mid-twentieth century emergence of the black middle class in the United States reshaped American society, consumer markets, and even the bodies of African Americans. In her dissertation project, Melina Haberl, PhD candidate at Florida International University, is researching the health and diet culture of African American women in the 1970s and ‘80s. Using several Hagley Library collections, including the BBD&O and Ernst Dichter archives, Haberl charts shifts in foodways, consumer habits, and cultural values around health. In support of her work Haberl received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/underwriting-donation-tickets-1470779985529?aff=oddtdtcreator

In her new book, Black Power Inc.: Corporate America and the Rise of Multinational Empowerment Politics Jessica Ann Levy traces Black empowerment’s rise in 20th century American politics and its contradictions as a form of African American political activity. By closely following minister Leon Sullivan in his influential and varied career, Levi shows how white and Black businesspeople and government officials championed Black empowerment as a means to simultaneously offer meaningful opportunities for African Americans and to blunt the more radical aspects of the Black Power movement. Black empowerment politics similarly found application overseas in Cold War efforts to promote American-style free enterprise in Africa. In South Africa US corporate executives and government officials wielded Black empowerment politics to oppose apartheid and divestment even as they sought greater opportunities for Africans. By the early twenty-first century, the notion that private enterprise should play a leading role in com

Americans had established schools, hospitals, and businesses in China prior to the 1949 triumph of the Communists under Mao. What would be the fate of these institutions and their staff under the new dispensation? In his latest research, Dr. Sanjiao Tang, fellow at the National Library of Australia, explores the actions and reactions of Americans facing the advent of the People’s Republic of China. Using the DuPont firm as a representative American business of the period, Sanjiao finds that most Americans had a “wait and see” attitude toward Mao’s initial triumph. DuPont China only shut down its Shanghai headquarters a year after the Communist victory, doing so shortly before a wave of Anti-American sentiment expropriated the remaining American institutions in China. In support of his research, Dr. Sanjiao received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.o

New York City was the focus of the early American television industry. In TV’s early years NYC had the highest concentration of television sets, viewers, broadcasters, and infrastructure. In NYC many Americans had their first encounter with TV. In his latest book project, Dr. Richard Popp, associate professor at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, tunes into the tangled relationship between televisions and the urban fabric and lived experience of NYC. Using several collections held in the Hagley Library, including those of RCA, David Sarnoff, and Ernest Dichter, Popp explores the history of television screens in public spaces, and the many misadventures of the television repair industry. In support of his research, Dr. Popp received funding from the Hagley Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it ple

Film has played a role in America’s world’s fairs since the 1893 Chicago exhibition where a horse galloping was the big cinematic draw. In her latest book project, Dr. Dominique Bregent-Heald, professor at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, explores the history of film at American world’s fairs, such as the educational and industrial films shown by corporate sponsors. These spectacles were conceived of as a means to make industrial products and processes entertaining, and to induce fair goers to identify with the film subjects. In support of her work Dr. Bregent-Heald received finding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/underwriting-donation-tickets-1470779985529?aff=oddtdtcreator

Infrastructure projects have frequently generated controversies in American history, and railroads in particular have been the cause of many a political fracas. In her latest project, journalist and independent scholar Elizabeth Moore is uncovering the history of controversies over the Long Island Railroad. The politics are complex and multi-layered. From hyper-local concerns about noise, safety, and property values, to community-wide concerns about development and accessibility, to state-level concerns for tax revenue, popular approbation, and power. Every train, every rail, every station, and every commuter is bound up in these problems. In support of her work Moore received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/underwrit