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 Éleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834). The company began with the production of gunpowder. E.I. du Pont de Nemours' Explosives Manufacturing Department was created in May 1917 by the merger of the Black Powder Operating Department and the High Explosives Operating Department. This collection consists primarily of prints published by the DuPont Company's Sporting Powder Division and Explosives Department between 1917 and 1951.

The DuPont Company's Louviers Works manufactured dynamite in Colorado, beginning production in 1908. The works provided explosives, primarily for mines in the region, and was part of the DuPont Company Explosives Department. This small collection consists of five copies of operations manuals from the DuPont Company's Louviers Works that were issued to the manager of the works. The manuals are about plant methods, office rules for safety protocols, and chemical operations for producing ammonium nitrate, nitric acid concentrate, and ammonia oxidation.

In the years leading up to the Second World War, the United States government initiated a massive effort to ensure that adequate supplies of essential materials would be readily available should the country's armed forces become actively engaged in military conflict. At the request of the Army Ordnance Department, the DuPont Company participated in these procurement programs by undertaking the design, construction, and operation of plants for the manufacture of military explosives and other chemical products essential to the successful prosecution of the war. The records of the Explosives Department consist of special reports to the Executive Committee, the files of general manager Edward B. Yancey, and the files of powder superintendent Charles E. Seymour.

Tazewell Lamar McCorkle Sr. was regarded as a leading authority in the field of commercial explosives. Trained as a chemical engineer, McCorkle spent more than thirty years as a sales representative with the Explosives Department of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. The papers are composed entirely of copies of official DuPont Company materials that McCorkle retained after his retirement. These files provide extensive documentation of departmental policies and procedures governing the storage and delivery of DuPont explosives.

Wallis Gartside Hines (1919-2014) was a chemical engineer employed at the Kankakee Ordnance Works from 1942 to 1943, a war plant of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company located south of Joliet, Illinois. His notes describe the steps to be followed in the manufacture and refining of sodium and lead azide and for the laboratory analysis necessary for quality control.