The DuPont Engineering Department collection consists of photographic material documenting Twentieth century construction projects throughout the many different E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company work sites, including some outside construction projects within the explosives and chemical industry. The photographic material begins in 1903 shortly after the Department was founded and continues into the mid-1900s with some photographs taken during the 1970s and 1980s. The majority of the collection is black and white photography, but there is a small section of negatives and cyanotypes with some color photographs and slides at the end of the collection.

The collection has been organized into series by work site. There are 209 work sites which are arranged in alphabetical order. Within each series, the materials are in chronological order. Each series includes photographs ranging from varying work site types such as explosives, tetraethylene, cellophane, rayon, paint development and fabrikoid. There are dynamite plants such as Sterling Works; manufactured nitro-cotton such as Hopewell; dynamite and shell loading plants such as Penniman Number 1 and 2 along with a nitroglycerin plant at Haskell. Worksites that started or expanded during World War II included in the collection are Indian Head, Hanford Site, and the Chicksaw plant in Memphis. Cellophane and rayon production at Spruance, paint development at Philadelphia works, dye production at Dye Works, and fabrikoid production at Fabrikoid Works. There are also several worksite locations in Chile, notably Peña Grande which excavated Caliche.

Even further, each series will likely include building exteriors and interiors, landscape views, construction progress over time, various mechanical equipment, tramlines, and workers villages. Each series of worksites will likely include buildings such as Change Houses, Mixing Houses, Nitric Acid Plants, Corning Mills, Magazines, Soda Houses, Power Houses, Shops such as Carpenter and Machine Shops, Neutralizing Houses, Factories, Nitrating Houses, Laboratories, Barricades and Storage Houses. More specific sites are Nitroglycerin Plants, Ammonia Oxidation Plants, Gelatine Cartridge Houses, Dynamite Cotton Drying Plants, Crude Cotton Storehouses, and Shell Plants. Other specific sites are related to the manufacture of Rayon, Dyes, Paint, Cellophane and Fabrikoid will likely have photographs such as Color Dry Houses, Naphthionic Acid, Cellophane Plants, Raw Stock and Storage Building, Fibersilk Plants, and Pyroxylin.

Some work sites include projects where multiple buildings have been grouped together due to the overarching project, and are categorically labeled by project number. These sections can be very large and contain many common buildings found in other worksites as separate sites.

There is also a large selection of Panoramic photographs that include: plant overviews, construction projects, and interiors and exteriors of buildings. In addition, some photographs have been labeled with shorthand by the photographers on the back of the photograph.

Highlights include a photograph album from the Hanford Site’s Yuletide event from 1943 to 1944, and two additional scrapbooks that document meetings, employment anniversaries, and retirements associated with the Engineering Department. There is also a small quantity of photographic prints of the Engineering Department staff including some of the Chief Engineers such as William G. Ramsay (1866-1916), H.M. Pierce (1873-1943), Granville Read (1894-1962). Additionally, a small quantity of photographic prints are also available of the interior of the Hotel DuPont.

A small number of photographs were destroyed by the DuPont Company prior to the collection being transferred to Hagley Library, meaning the collection was not fully intact when it arrived. Topics of content destroyed materials were a number of employee portraits and various buildings and sections of work sites.