E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company was established in 1802 by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) and his son Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834). 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.

The DuPont Company constructed a dye works at Deepwater Point, New Jersey (also called just Deepwater, New Jersey) during World War I to enter the market for dyes left vacant by Germany's absence. This was the DuPont Company's first major venture into organic chemistry fields. The plant included Jackson Laboratory and the Technical Laboratory, two major research facilities. In 1945 the plant name was changed to the Chambers Works, in honor of Dr. Arthur D. Chambers (1847-1929), a DuPont executive who promoted company involvement in the dye business.

John A. Dick (1879-1972), the first full-time photographer hired by the DuPont Company, documented the growth of the plant during WWI in these photographs.