The J. Welles Henderson Archives and Library at Independence Seaport Museum is pleased to announce that the John E. Hand & Sons Company Records are ready for research. A finding aid will be available soon on our web site, www.phillyseaport.org/library.
The John E. Hand & Sons Company was a nautical instrument manufacturing firm that operated in Philadelphia and southern New Jersey from 1873 to 1997. The company engineered equipment for all varieties of floating vessels, including pleasure boats, large commercial ships, and those of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard. In addition to manufacturing a large selection of standard navigational tools used by mariners, such as compasses and binnacles, the company also developed new instruments, like an underwater wrist compass for the Navy.
The collection boasts a wide breadth of material, which includes financial records, patents, correspondence, contracts, catalogs and other ephemera, photographs, and engineering plans. A majority of the material is technical in nature, and would serve any researcher interested in the design and development of nautical instruments well.
The Seaport Museum acquired the Hand Collection through a private donation from Michael Rivkin in 2002. Processing was made possible by a grant from the Albert M. Greenfield Foundation, which will also fund processing the records of the Seamen’s Church Institute, scheduled for completion in June 2008.
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