This collection consists of original photographs, copy work from other Hagley Museum & Library collections, and items loaned for copy to Hagley Museum & Library from various individuals. It comprises more than 1250 discrete images depicting the landscape and buildings at or near the DuPont explosives manufacturing plants along Brandywine Creek near Wilmington, Delaware. Approximately 900 images depict powder yard sites, including the DuPont Experimental Station, either during the mills' final decades of operation or prior to, during, and after excavation and restoration work on the site in the 1950s and 1960s. Most of the remaining images depict the worker communities which surrounded the powder yards.

Of the images of the DuPont powder yards, the following sites identified as being in or near Eleutherian Mills Yard (also called Upper Yard) are represented in the collection: Eleutherian Mills barn, boarding house, Cannon House site, corning mill, Charcoal House, Eleutherian Mills dam, Dust Mill, Eagle Glaze Mill, entrance area, First Office of the DuPont Company, First Home of the du Pont family in Delaware, general views, the Iron Bridge at Louviers, the suspension bridge, Lammot du Pont's chemical laboratory, jitney stops (for museum), gunpowder magazine, millrace, Saltpeter refinery, Second Office, Soda House, and the Specific Gravity House.

The following sites identified as being in or near Hagley Yard are represented in the collection: Belin House, Birkenhead rolling mills, Blacksmith Shop, a stone bridge, Hagley dams, Rumford Dawes House (used as an office building), Dye House (Picker House), entrance area, general views, Gibbons House, graining houses, corning mill, gunpowder magazines, hydraulic elevator, hydroelectric plant, Left Bank of Brandywine Creek, Old Machine Shop, New Machine Shop, former Rumford Dawes grist and rolling mill, Henry Clay Mill, Barley Mill (site of New Machine Shop), packing house, press house, pulp keg mill, pump house, millrace, rolling mills, spring house, steam plant, and the Brandywine Manufacturers' Sunday School building.

The dam, entrance area, glaze mill, and rolling mills at the Lower Yard of the DuPont Brandywine works are also depicted in the collection.

The collection also contains photographs of archaeological work conducted in the 1950s at Eleutherian Mills and at the Birkenhead rolling mills and the Dye House and Picker House in Hagley Yard. In addition, there are images of powder yard and other workers (including office staff and female powder workers during World War I), powder wagons, the company's Experimental Station, proposed museum plans, the 150th anniversary ceremonies of the DuPont Company held in 1952, and reproductions of maps of the area from various dates. There are also photographs of the aftermath of explosions that occurred at the powder yards in 1890, 1920, 1921, and possibly 1896.

Images of the worker communities near the powder yards form the other main subject of this collection. The collection includes depictions of worker housing, du Pont family homes, churches, taverns, schools, and other facets of social and work life in the area.

The village of Henry Clay and the community of Walker's Banks are particularly well represented, and the collection includes general views of the village, images of individual houses, railroad tracks, street-railroad tracks, roads, businesses, the Cooper Shop, Breck's Mill, Rokeby Mill (the first DuPont Experimental Station), Breck's Mill dam, Walker's Mill, Rockford Park, and "New Bridge" covered bridge over Brandywine Creek at Rising Sun Lane. Long Row, Pigeon Hole Row, and Walker's Banks row houses are identifiable in several images. Some of the general views of the village were photographed from the top of nearby Rockford Tower (constructed 1899-1901).

Other neighborhoods represented in the collection include Chicken Alley, Squirrel Run, Upper Banks, and Wagoner's Row (including Fleming's Corner). There are also images of the following local churches: Christ Church Christiana Hundred, St. Joseph's-on-the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church, Green Hill Presbyterian Church, and Mount Salem Methodist Church. Also included are images of floods on Brandywine Creek and the construction of the Tyler McConnell Bridge in 1952.

Images of residents include recreational scenes of ice skating, sledding, swimming, and canoeing as well as group photographs of the Clay Target Club, bands (including Alfred I. du Pont's Tancopanican Band), and the Hagley basketball team. There are also photographs of Alexis I. du Pont School students and faculty.

The collection finally includes images of the following du Pont residences near the Brandywine powder yards: Hagley House, Hagley (also called the Jacob Broom House), Upper Louviers, Lower Louviers, Pelleport, Rokeby, Swamp Hall, the Charles I. du Pont house, and Eleutherian Mills. Eleutherian Mills is particularly well represented, and the collection includes images of Louise du Pont Crowninshield's garden in addition to photographs of the residence itself.