E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. records include those records generated by the parent company beginning in 1902. They are accumulations received from various company offices and repositories. In many instances, they are fragmentary and without continuity, and they are never to be regarded as completed files. Among the more extensive groups are those for: Advertising, Experimental Station, Foreign Relations Department, Legal Department, Patents, Presidential Files, Public Relations Department, Textile Fibers Department, and Vice Presidential Files. The group is arranged alphabetically by topic. These files describe the company's response to the 1912 antitrust suit, its expansion during the First World War, and its post-war diversification. DuPont's increasing commitment to research and development is documented in the records of the Textile Fibers Department. The papers of the division's Technical Director, George Preston Hoff (1899-1980), describe the development of nylon and other synthetic fibers during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Records of the Wilmington Experimental Station and the High Explosives Operating Department document the manufacture and testing of smokeless powder and nitroglycerin. Legal Department records describe the company's attempt to defend itself against antitrust prosecution. Foreign Relations Department Records trace DuPont's relationships with European chemical companies, particularly I.C.I. (England) and I.G. Farben (Germany).

The presidential papers of T. Coleman du Pont (1903-1913) describe the company's incorporation and reorganization, as do the vice presidential papers of Hamilton M. Barksdale (1861-1918, papers dating 1892-1918). The Walter Carpenter presidential papers (1940-1948) document the history of the DuPont Company in the mid-century. This was the period of DuPont's closest association with General Motors, and the papers describe this relationship and the antitrust suit that resulted. The Carpenter files contain correspondence with many of the leading industrialists, military personnel, and scientists of the 1940s and 1950s. They describe the role that DuPont played during the Second World War, its response to the government regulation of the period, and the contributions that it made to the development of atomic energy during the period of the Manhattan Project. Carpenter's papers are supplemented by the vice presidential papers of Jasper Elliot Crane (1881-1969, vice president 1929-1946). (Note, most of the files generated by the president's office are accessioned under the names of the individual officers.)

Of further note, the Advertising records document the activities of the Exhibits, Motion Picture, and Art Division of the DuPont Company's Advertising Dept. In addition to managing the permanent display spaces at Atlantic City and Wilmington, the division produced a wide range of exhibits from world's fairs to small trade shows, along with industrial films aimed at both the industrial buyer and the general public. In the Information Services records, there are a set of advertising and promotional scrapbooks compiled by manager Charles H. Rutledge that provide excellent overviews to several DuPont fibers, including Dacron, Nylon, Orlon, Rayon, and Lycra.