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DuPont Company Pioneering Laboratory organization charts

Creation: 1941-2001
 Collection
Accession: 2486

Abstract

The Pioneering Research Laboratory was the research and development facility for the DuPont Company's Textile Fibers Division. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company, established in 1802. The collection consists primarily of an incomplete set of organizational charts for departments at the Pioneering Research Laboratory in the Experimental Station, particularly DuPont Fibers and its predecessors (Fibers Department, Textile Fibers Department, Rayon Department).

Dates

  • Creation: 1941-2001

Creator

Extent

1 Linear Foot

Historical Note

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. 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.

DuPont Company's Pioneering Research Laboratory was established within a unit of the their Rayon Department in the late 1920s and was originally located in Buffalo, New York. Under the leadership of W. Hale Charch (1898-1958), it was one of the DuPont Company's first research and development units and played an important role in the development of artificial fibers into marketable products. The laboratory was relocated to the Experimental Station complex outside of Wilmington, Delaware, in 1950.

Scope and Content

The records consist of incomplete sets of organization charts, mostly from DuPont Fibers and its predecessors, the Fibers Department, Textile Fibers Department, and Rayon Department. ranging from 1941 to 2001. The files of charts came from the Pioneering Research Laboratory in the Experimental Station and focus on that facility, with less on other parts of the departments. The charts were originally issued as sheets to be kept in loose-leaf binders, with earlier versions being discarded as new ones were received. As these are files of discarded pages, they are both incomplete and somewhat out of order.

The typical chart list the organizational unit, the functional groupings within laboratories and plants, management titles and names, and individual names of those reporting to the various managers, supervisors and group leaders.

Two files describe the work assignments within the Pioneering Research Laboratory. The Nylon Research chart, dated January 1968, lists the research director and lab director along with managers, supervisors and research associates with their assigned areas of research, such as tire yarn, industrial yarn finish, etc. The Pioneering Research Div. Research Forecasts, 1964-1966 and 1970-1979, are monthly reports listing departmental personnel and their assigned research areas/products.

There are also directories of the officers and managers of DuPont's overseas subsidiaries in Latin America and Australasia and miscellaneous chart pages for the company as a whole.

Access Restriction

Records are subject to a twenty-five year time seal from the date of their creation.

Language of Materials

English

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title:
DuPont Company Pioneering Laboratory organization charts
Author:
Rainer Naus
Date:
2014.
Description rules:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description:
English
Script of description:
Latin

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the Manuscripts and Archives Repository

Contact:
PO Box 3630
Wilmington Delaware 19807 USA
302-658-2400