E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. The company was established in 1802 by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) and his son Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834) the company began with the production of gunpowder. The du Pont’s purchased a mill site on the banks of the Brandywine River just North of Wilmington, Delaware. During wartime the company was a major supplier for the United States government. During peacetime, the company marketed their product towards sportsmen and hunters. Throughout the 1900s and 1910s, the company shifted its focus away from gunpowder production and towards chemistry innovations, eventually exiting the gunpowder business altogether.

During the 1910s, th DuPont Company decided to enter the film and photographic supply market. In 1924, it entered into a joint venture with Pathé Exchange, the American affiliate of the French company Pathé Cinema Societe Anonyme. The new concern was called DuPont-Pathé Film Manufacturing Corporation, and it operated out of Parlin, New Jersey. The company produced 35mm positive movie film with sales reaching approximately $4 million a year by the end of the decade. In 1927 Eastman Kodak purchased Pathé Cinema and in 1929 RKO bought most of Pathé Exchange’s assets. So in 1931, DuPont changed the name of the company to DuPont Film Manufacturing Corporation, dropping the Pathé name.