Summer 2014 - Vol. 43 No. 2 SAVE THE DATE Fireworks! June 13 and 20 Bike and Hike Evenings Wednesdays, June 25 through August 27 HagleyMAGAZINE AND 2013 ANNUAL REPORT Hagley Machine Shop Goes Off the Grid From The Executive Director Executive Director It is springtime again in the millrace. This resurrected turbine will David Cole Brandywine valley, a time when the once again drive machinery inside our Hagley community revels in the Machine Shop and will present our emergence of our vibrant azaleas, visitors with a tangible and compelling Cover: Hagley Volunteer avenues of lush cherry blossoms, and example of water power at work. It’s a Doug Schindler in flowering dogwoods that stretch slice of the nineteenth century brought the Machine Shop. their arms gracefully over millraces. to life, and a tantalizing foretaste of During this season, it is easy to forget projects we are planning to set the Back: Visitors enjoy that Hagley’s museum and library venerable DuPont powder yards in Bike and Hike evenings occupy a site that was once a beehive of motion. Please come visit the turbine along the Brandywine. industrial activity—a place where trees and see for yourself how the wheels are were few, acrid odors filled the air, and turning at Hagley! grinding machine parts produced a On another positive note, Hagley discordant music. welcomes to our Board of Trustees The du Ponts were adept at using Dr. Steven W. Usselman, who is the tools of hydropower to harness the professor of history and Chair of the Brandywine’s awesome force, bending School of History, Technology, and it to Hagley’s peculiar geography and Society at Georgia Tech. He is a Board of Trustees the requirements of their manufacturing specialist in the history of technology, Henry B. duPont IV President plant. Sluice gates, waterwheels, innovation, and American political Howard E. Cosgrove turbines—all were brought to bear economy, and has published over Vice President Augustus I. duPont to channel the turbulent waters for two dozen refereed articles and book Treasurer productive uses. chapters, including many pertaining Ann C. Rose Secretary I am delighted to announce that to IBM and the computer industry. Carol A. Ammon after a long hibernation, one of those Finally, you will notice that this Edward J. Bassett, CFA tools has been brought back into service. issue of the magazine incorporates E. Matthew Brown The story that follows describes a three- Hagley’s 2013 annual report. Thank you Thomas M. Connelly, Jr., Ph.D. Darla Pomeroy du Pont year effort by a creative team of Hagley for supporting Hagley through your Edward B. duPont* curators, technicians, and volunteers to donations of time, energy, and financial Charles M. Elson reinstall a vintage turbine in a restored contributions. Robert V. A. Harra, Jr. Blaine T. Phillips M. Gary Talley Hagley Magazine is published quarterly by Hagley Editing: Jill MacKenzie, Meg Marcozzi, Stephen W. Usselman, Ph.D. Museum and Library, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Catherine Riley JoAnne Yates, Ph.D. Address: P. O. Box 3630, Wilmington, DE 19807-0630 Design: Adam Albright (302) 658-2400 • www.hagley.org * President Emeritus How are we doing? Let us know at www.hagley.org/contact. COVER STORY Off The Grid On June 7, Hagley will take a cutting-edge technology and represented Hagley Volunteer Charlie huge step forward in advancing its the DuPont Company’s commitment to Quarles operates a lathe in goals of teaching stories of innovation, innovation. The technology he invented Hagley’s Machine Shop. integrating more technology and in the 1890s has been adapted and is in engineering activities into the guest use today in the turbochargers of high- experience, bringing the powder yards performance cars. Innovation with Libations to life, and becoming more sustainable. In addition to helping Hagley teach Join the Golden Pheasants On that day, it will crank open the sluice about innovations in technology and networking group to gate, bringing the rushing power of the engineering, operation of this turbine celebrate the completion of Brandywine to a newly restored water will also allow Hagley to demonstrate this project! turbine, returning hydropower to our another link in the story of the Thursday, June 5 nineteenth-century Machine Shop. evolution of water power that starts at 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Reply by May 30 The Type A Hercules Turbine the Birkenhead waterwheel and will Hagley members $15 Waterwheel was manufactured by the eventually culminate in the generation Non-members $20 Holyoke Machine Company, which is of green electricity through modern Includes drink ticket, still in business today. It was designed by turbine technology. The Hercules complimentary beer John B. McCormick, widely considered turbine will generate 43 horsepower, sampling, and light refreshments. Must be 21 one of the most important innovators more than enough to power the years or older to attend. in hydropower, whose inventions Machine Shop, taking it off the electrical Reservations required, call dramatically improved America’s grid, reducing Hagley’s carbon footprint, (302) 658-2400, ext. 235 or industrial output in the nineteenth and and enhancing Hagley’s sustainability e-mail [email protected]. twentieth centuries. At the time of its into the future. introduction, McCormick’s turbine was 3 COVER STORY 1 2 3 4 5 6 A 120-Year-Old Treasure 1) The coal mills originally Nearly three years ago, Hagley staff Reconstructing a nineteenth-century powered by the turbine. reached into a deep hole and pulled out turbine is a big job—particularly when 2) Summer of 2011 the two nineteenth-century water turbines. many pieces are missing and can’t turbine is found and These rare iron remnants of Hagley’s be found at the local hardware store. recovered. 3) Staff inside industrial heyday likely escaped World Hagley staff members were undaunted. the deteriorated iron flume War II scrap metal drives because of Early repairs to the turbine were that brought water from their hidden location under piles of conducted in the Machine Shop, which the race to the turbine. rubble and decades of overgrowth. For had equipment big enough to handle the 4) Old technology years, Hagley staff members suspected job. New gears were cast from patterns employed in the that a treasure lay buried in this area. A that had long ago been repurposed as reconstruction. 5) When gift from the estate of Victor M. du Pont decorations in the school program space. the Brandywine froze, enabled us to find out. But the biggest coup was locating a set back-up steam power was John McCoy, Hagley’s curator of pulleys that were the right size. Long used to run the mills. of mechanical exhibitions, has been retired in a back field, these two pulleys 6) Heavy timbers working with a team of Hagley staff, were donated by Mr. and Mrs. Glenn reinforced with steel interns from the American College Barlow. The project could not have support the turbine. of Building Arts, and volunteers Dan moved forward without them. Caster, Irv Levine, and Gordon Wozak for three years to restore, repair, and 4 reconstruct the 120-year-old turbine. HAPPENING AT HAGLEY Photo upper right by Ashley Schroeder Hagley Makes a Splash with H2 Oh! This spring Hagley will debut a the original powder yards built in 1802. Hagley visitors explore walking tour focused on the power of The tour will also include the Birkenhead the power of water. water. The H2 Oh! tour examines the waterwheel, the graining mill, and the evolution of water power at Hagley newly restored turbine that will be from the waterwheel to the steam bringing green energy back to the powder H2 Oh! Water Power engine and looks at ways that the yards beginning in June. Visitors will Walking Tour DuPont Company harnessed the power try their hands at operating a miniature June 7 and July 5 of the Brandywine to make black roll mill that is part of the water power 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. powder for more than 120 years. models, along with other activities. Use Hagley’s main entrance Guide Sandra Bordley will take Tours will be offered on June 7 and off Route 141. Included visitors on a ninety-minute journey July 5 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Tours involve with general admission. through the innovation of water power walking on uneven ground and will Free for members and children five and under. as exhibited in the Hagley powder yards. take place rain or shine. Reservations requested, Along the way participants will discover Hagley’s walking tours have call the Visitor Center at why the Brandywine Valley was ideally been a popular addition to visitor (302) 658-2400, ext. 261 suited to support so many mills. programming—be sure to make your This tour, beginning at the walking tour reservation by calling the Eleutherian Mills dam, offers guests Visitor Center at (302) 658-2400, ext. 261. a rare opportunity to see up close the Spaces for these tours are limited. earliest ruins on the property and visit 5 HAPPENING AT HAGLEY Photos by Ashley Schroeder New Face for Exceptional Program Important changes are occurring hagley.org/ylp to watch a film in which By Kids, For Kids! with Hagley’s Creek Kids Youth the teens talk about their experiences. PastTimes: Nineteenth- Leadership Program. After an award- A major component of the YLP is Century Fun winning season in 2012-2013, the twenty- the creation of a series of summer events Saturday, May 17 1 to 4 p.m. five teens in the program and Hagley for families at Hagley.