Alfred Victor du Pont (1798-1856), son of Sophie Madeleine Dalmas (1775-1828) and Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834), the founder of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. He was educated at Mt. Airy and Dickinson Colleges. He studied chemistry at Dickinson under Thomas Cooper (1759-1839), a disciple of Joseph Priestly (1733-1804).

In 1818, he joined the firm E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. after an explosion that killed thirty-three people. Upon the death of his father in 1834, he formed a new partnership with his brother-in-law, James Antoine Bidermann (1790-1865). In 1837, du Pont became the senior partner. He retired in 1850. He was primarily interested in developing methods for improving the manufacture of black powder. He worked with Ellwood Morris (1814-1872), a Philadelphia engineer, evaluating the efficiency of turbines at the DuPont mills.