Finding Aids

DuPont, Washington, was built by E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company for the purpose of housing employees of its dynamite plant. The collection includes papers on the history of DuPont, specifically the nomination to the National Register, along with copies of newspaper clippings, maps, and reports related to the nomination.

D.W. Page was an otherwise unidentified American civil engineer. This item is Page's diary, documenting his work as a government railroad engineer. Page's diary begins in July 1914, just prior to the completion of his work in South America. With the exception of 1919 and 1920, he kept the diary, consisting of typed pages in a loose-leaf binder, over the next eight years. The diary is the work of an articulate, trained professional, and observant traveler.

Ervin George "E. G." Bailey (1880-1974) was a combustion engineer, inventor, and businessman. His personal papers include correspondence and articles on subjects relating to combustion engineering, and information about awards and honors Bailey received and conferences he participated in. Bailey's papers include copies of numerous speeches and publications on combustion engineering and engineering education.

Peter Bauduy (1769?-1833) and E.I. du Pont (1771-1834) were partners in several business ventures together, including Du Pont, Bauduy, & Co., a textile manufacturing firm and E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. The collection includes an official certified copy of the articles of agreement between Bauduy and du Pont, forming a partnership for the powder manufacturing company that would become E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company.

What became known as the Yerkes plant in Buffalo, New York of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company began as the DuPont Fibersilk Company in 1920, a joint venture between DuPont and a French textile company, Comptoir des Textiles Artificiels, created to produce artificial silk. In 1923, the two companies formed a second joint venture to produce cellophane at the site. DuPont bought the French interests in both companies in March 1928. This collection from the Yerkes plant consists of various publications, cellophane samples, employee magazines, and a scrapbook about the live broadcast from Buffalo of an episode of the radio program Cavalcade of America, entitled The Oath, based on the life of Millard Fillmore.

E. Paul du Pont (1887-1950), the son of Francis Gurney du Pont (1850-1905) and Elise Simons du Pont (1849-1919), is best known as the manufacturer of the Du Pont automobile. He owned the house Squirrel Run Hill, the former Second Office of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, and the surrounding grounds. This small collection includes papers relating to additions and alterations to Squirrel Run Hill and papers relating to the estates of his parents.

Hercules Inc. was a manufacturer of chemicals and munitions based in Wilmington, Delaware. Earl R. Fenstermacher (1894-1984) was the superintendent of the Columbus plant in Kansas. This item is a bound volume containing two typescripts written by Fenstermacher describing the manufacture and operating procedures at the company.

Earle E. Coleman (1925-2009) was the head of imprints cataloguing at Eleutherian Mills Historical Library. The typescript bibliogrpahy includes collaborative works, English translations, and items in published compilations of papers. Most of the titles and information are in French.

The Eastern Advertising Company installed and maintained advertising cards in streetcars in the major cities of New England, particularly on behalf of local merchants carrying national or regional brands. The report contains an analysis of sales of Laco castile soap versus competing brands in drugstores in New England cities.

E.B. (Edward Barnes) “Ted” Leisenring Jr. (1926-2011) was the CEO of a fourth-generation family coal-mining business. He was president of Westmoreland Coal from 1961 to 1988, and remained as chairman of the board until 1992. This collection consists of the Philadelphia corporate executive's business and personal papers and his immediate family, with estate papers of his father, mother and paternal grandfather.

The firm of E.C. Beetem & Co. was established in 1901, incorporated as E.C. Beetem & Son, Inc. in 1923, and for a time was one of the leading carpet manufacturers in the United States. The company employed women in the finishing and materials departments, in the office, and at home assembling rag rugs; men were employed as weavers. This collection includes administrative records, correspondence with customers, selling agents, and rag dealers which document marketing strategies and pricing. Also included in this collection are some samples and drawings of rug patterns.

The Economic History Association (EHA) is a professional association dedicated to supporting interest in the study of economic history. EHA promotes the teaching, research, and publication of every aspect of economic history. The association was established in 1940 and is comprised of professors, students, scholars, and historians. Economic History Association records are organized into ten series: Administrative records; Preseidents' files; Secretary's files; Financial files; By-laws; Annual meetings; Memembership lists and related items; Publications; Committee on Research in Economic History; and Miscellaneous. There are several unprocessed additions. Some additions have simple inventories, while others do not. Access to these materials is at the discretion of the archivist.

Longwood Gardens is a series of formal display gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, that was developed by Pierre S. du Pont (1870-1954) after he purchased the site from the Peirce family in 1906. The collection is comprised of two oral history interview projects. The first is with Eddie Dowling (1889-1976), an actor, screenwriter, playwright, director, producer, songwriter, and composer. The second project is commissioned oral histories with people with remembrances of du Pont and the development of Longwood Gardens.

Eddie W. Foote (1858-1932) was a correspondent for Hartford and Springfield newspapers. In 1876, he visited the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, after which he wrote a memoir about it as well as a visit to Newport.

The Edge Moor Iron Company engaged in the manufacture of iron and steel bridges at a plant located on the Delaware River north of Wilmington. The collection is comprised of a limited selection of documents, primarily connected to the liquidation of the company in 1936. It includes plant and property maps, clippings, and deeds and titles covering the property.

The Edison Electric Institute is the trade association of the electric utility industry. The minutes of the Institute's Transmission and Distributing Committee (1935, 1941-1970) include both business transactions of the committee and professional papers of representatives of member utility companies on a variety of subjects related to the transmission and distribution of electricty.

Edith Marion DeBlois (1920-2000) was a native Canadian with an interest in foreign travel and a season pass to the Expo 67. Expo 67 was an international exposition that took place in in Montréal, Québec from April 27 to October 29, 1967 to celebrate Canada's centennial. The theme was "Man and his World." These materials were collected by DeBlois while attending Expo 67. This small collection includes many of the official guides and maps issued by the fair, as well as specialized pamphlets dealing with particular themes or exhibits. DeBlois also compiled a series of scrapbooks documenting her attendance at various exhibits and performances.

Edith N. McConnell (1880-1968) was a confectioner and caterer in Wilmington, Delaware from the 1920s through the 1950s. The records consist of a three ledgers, containing business expenses and customer account books dating from 1937 to 1945, and from 1955 to 1956.

This collection consists of a single mimeographed copy of a letter from consumer Edna R. White (1901-1965) of Houston, Texas, to the Aughinbaugh Canning Co. of Biloxi, Mississippi. It includes extensive racist content.

Brothers Edward Elsmore DeHaven (1899-1983) and Thomas Virgil DeHaven (1903-1995) worked for RCA Victor Company, Inc., the leading U.S. manufacturer of phonographs, the famous "Victrola" introduced in 1906, and the recorder and manufacturer of phonograph records by many of the leading musical artists of the day. This small collection consists of press clippings, advertisements, internal company documents, and correspondence. Of interest are materials related to the "Magic Brain" Radio Car, which traveled the country to RCA distributors and dealers to help advertise RCA products and services on a one-year tour in 1935.

Edward Graham Jefferson (1921-2006) was a research chemist and chief executive officer of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. Jefferson's papers consist of his "personal" business files, and do not include his official correspondence as CEO of the DuPont Company. The papers primarily reflect Jefferson's "Head of State" role at DuPont and his membership on the boards of numerous business, trade, and educational organizations. The papers have been arranged in three series: DuPont Company and personal activities, Outside board memberships, and Speeches.

The major portion of a collection of railroad public and employee timetables amassed by railroad enthusiast and historian Edward H. Weber (1934-), best known for his systematic photography of railroad stations and structures. Although the oldest date from the nineteenth century, most cover the period of decline and restructuring of North American passenger service that began in the Depression and accelerated in the years after World War II.

Edward J. Nossen (1930-2016) was an engineer in the Radio Corporation of America's Government Systems Division at Camden, New Jersey. He invented a range-determining system that can rescue air craft. The Radio Corporation of America (renamed RCA Corporation in 1969) was best known for its pioneering radio and television development and manufacturing. In addition to consumer electronics, RCA was a major player in the development of electronics for industrial and military applications. This small collection consists of contract proposals and technical reports that were mostly submitted by RCA Government Systems Division, Camden. The proposals have Nossen's name written on the cover. The proposals and reports relate to communication systems being developed between 1964 and 1990.

Edward R. Stickel (1928-2008) worked for the Penn Central Transportation Company, Amtrak, and Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). His collection consists of copies of official documents relating to the commuter rail operations of SEPTA and its predecessors.

Edwin A. Gee (1920-2013) was trained as a chemical engineer and worked as a metallurgist for the United States Bureau of Mines before joining the DuPont Company in 1948. The papers of Edwin A. Gee are incomplete and represent only a small portion of his work in the Development Department and as a member of the Executive Committee. The surviving records have been arranged in two series that document Gee's involvement in important phases of the company's history: Patent documentation and Diversification and research and development strategy.

Edwin R. Manchester (1885-1954) was editor of DuPont Magazine for thirty years from December 1920 until his retirement in 1950. He joined the DuPont Company in 1918 on a special World War I assignment and became associate editor of DuPont Magazine in August 1919. Manchester's papers provide an indication of the role company magazines played in the advertising strategy of large companies in the first half of the twentieth century. The small collection primarily comprises office files from Manchester's decades as editor of DuPont Magazine within the Advertising Department, although there are a few publications from the Tippecanoe Securities Company, for which Manchester worked prior to joining DuPont.

Peter Bauduy (1769?-1833) and E.I. du Pont (1771-1834) were partners in several business ventures together, including Du Pont, Bauduy, & Co. (a textile manufacturing firm) and E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. The collection contains photocopied notes from Judge Jacob Stout (1765-1855) made during an appeal in the case of E.I. du Pont and Victor du Pont v. Peter Bauduy, et al., cocnerning the sale of certain mill seats on the Brandywine River near Wilmington.

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) for the production of gunpowder. The DuPont Displays business was originally carried out by several business units which are represented in the collection, primarily Photo Products, Imagining Systems, and Electronics in their many iterations.

The Foreign Relations Department of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company was first organized on August 1, 1930, for the purpose of improving the exchange of scientific and technical information with DuPont's British counterpart, Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd. These materials consist of records of the International Finance Division within DuPont International, and more particularly the Division's Vital Records Program and Nylon de Mexico reorganization.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont Company. Established in 1802, the company began with the production of gunpowder. This collection consists of two copies of items, a letter and a receipt, from the DuPont Company to John Mason (1766-1849), superintendent of the Office of Indian Trade.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company was organized in Paris in 1801 by Pierre Samuel "P.S." du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) and his son Eleuthère Irénée "E.I." du Pont (1771-1834) for the manufacture of gunpowder. Included here are records of the firm collected by P.S. du Pont and separated from the main body of company records.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly known as the DuPont Company. It was established in 1802 and began by manufacturing gunpowder, later moving into chemical compounds. At the beginning of the twentieth century, DuPont had the need for more advertising as the company began expanding its product line beyond gunpowders and explosives. Between 1907 and 1909, an Advertising Division was formed within the Sales Department; a separate Advertising Department was established in 1921. This collection consists of background research files on ad campaigns run in individual industrial departments for various products and to promote the company as a whole.

The Savannah River Plant manufactured basic materials required in the production of nuclear weapons, specifically plutonium and tritium. The complex was comprised of five reactors, two chemical separation plants, a heavy water extraction plant, nuclear fuel, and target fabrication facility, a tritium extraction facility, and waste management facilities. The E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Atomic Energy Division records are an expansive and rich collection of materials that document the DuPont Company’s involvement in the Manhattan Project and the company’s continued role in the United States government’s exploration of atomic power and weaponry.

DuPont Company's Chestnut Run Laboratories first laboratory was the Textile Research Laboratory whose purpose was to test the effects of normal wear and tear on DuPont's line of synthetic fibers and fabrics, it opened in 1954 near Wilmington, Delaware. The Chestnut Run Technical Library is a branch of the DuPont Technical Libraries, which began in 1958. This collection consists of files related to the work of the scientists at the laboratory; their speeches, research articles, and some periodicals and scrapbooks related to textile design. There are also materials related to human resources polices and procedures; documents from a program about the future growth of the company; and a library subject file.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont Company. The DuPont Building was one of the first high-rises in Wilmington, Delaware; it occupied an entire block bound by 10th, 11th, Orange, and Market streets. Until early 2015 the building housed DuPont's headquarters. The collection documents the history of the DuPont Company, as well as its finances, corporate values, special events, and company communications.

The Employee Relations Department of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company became a formal entity in 1951, but each industrial department was responsible for its own recruitment and personnel practices. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. The records include reports, tables of hourly wages for production workers, benefits for employees, and personnel record cards for early twentieth century employees.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly known as the DuPont Company. It was established in 1802 and began by manufacturing gunpowder, later moving into chemical compounds. The company's Engineering Department was initially organized in 1903 as a division of the High Explosives Department, with the purpose of designing and constructing high explosives plants, powder machinery, and extensions to existing plants. This collection of DuPont Engineering records is fragmentary in nature. The surviving records are divided into four series that document a wide range of functions and represent several different time periods in the department’s evolution. The series are: Engineering Department history file; Engineering Research Laboratory; Construction Division; and Design Division, Corfam Poromeric Technology.

A collection of random publications, photographs, and objects associated with DuPont's Engineering Physics Laboratory. A number of the items appear to be associated with Paul M. Tannenbaum, once Senior Research Physicist at the Laboratory.

In the years leading up to the Second World War, the United States government initiated a massive effort to ensure that adequate supplies of essential materials would be readily available should the country's armed forces become actively engaged in military conflict. At the request of the Army Ordnance Department, the DuPont Company participated in these procurement programs by undertaking the design, construction, and operation of plants for the manufacture of military explosives and other chemical products essential to the successful prosecution of the war. The records of the Explosives Department consist of special reports to the Executive Committee, the files of general manager Edward B. Yancey, and the files of powder superintendent Charles E. Seymour.

The Grasselli Chemicals Department of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company was responsible for the manufacture of ammonia, inorganic heavy chemicals, zinc smelting, and plating products, tanning chemicals, insecticides, and wood preservatives. The records are limited to a single file on the Grasselli zinc mine near New Market, Tennessee, and contain copies of the lease, maps, geologist's reports, and correspondence on the output of the mine.

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 Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834) the company began with the production of gunpowder. This item is a small chromolithograph label for Du Pont smokeless sporting powder.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company was organized in Paris in 1801 by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours and his son Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. The collection contains insurance policies with the Union Insurance Company of Philadelphia, Delaware Fire Insurance Company, Wilmington Fire Insurance Company, and the Columbia Insurance Company of Philadelphia. The policies generally cover shipments of saltpeter, gunpowder, goods and merchandise, and the cotton factory Henry Clay Mill.

The Textile Fibers Department of the DuPont Company was established in 1936 (known then as the Rayon Department) which specialized in researching and developing synthetic fibers for fabrics such as Rayon, Nylon, Teflon, Corian, and Kevlar. Lavoisier Library is the library at the DuPont Company's Experimental Station, a large industrial research facility focused on innovative advancements in chemistry located in Wilmington, Delaware. The records in this collection consists of files assembled to document various aspects of the company's history, its policies and products, and the writings and speeches of executives and researchers.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont Company, established in 1802. The Legal Department was established as a staff department in 1905. The records of the Legal Department include copies of the 1899 dissolution agreement and the 1902 incorporation correspondence. The collection is organized into seven series: Administrative papers; Litigation; Vital records; Stockholder files; Historical files; Patent Board files; and Reports to the Executive Committee.

The E. I du Pont de Nemours & Company minute books document an important era in the history of the company from just before the turn of the twentieth century through the 1930s. The DuPont Company in this time went through many changes in structure under the leadership of cousins T. Coleman du Pont, Alfred I. du Pont, and Pierre S. du Pont.

The E.I. du Pont de Nemours Niagara Plant produces a number of specialty chemicals, such as polymer acetates, sodium cyanide, and methyl chloride; the plant was purchased by the DuPont Company in 1930. This small collection of Niagara Plant historical files consists of plant histories, photographs, biographical information on personnel, drawings of plant buildings, and some artifacts.

In 1801, French immigrants Eleuthère Irénée "E.I." du Pont (1771-1834) and his father Pierre Samuel "P.S." du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) organized the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company (alternatively referred to as the DuPont Company) in Paris for the purpose of manufacturing gunpowder in the United States. The next year E.I. du Pont purchased a mill site on the banks of the Brandywine Creek just north of Wilmington, Delaware, and the company would grow to be the preeminent gunpowder company in the United States for the next century. This collection comprises the nineteenth-century records of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. extending to the date of the second incorporation of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. in 1902. The company's twentieth-century records, with the 1902 reincorporation as the dividing point, are described in a separate finding aid as E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. twentieth-century records (Accession 0500.II).

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly known as the DuPont Company. It was established in 1802 and began by manufacturing gunpowder, later moving into chemical compounds. During the 1920s and 1930s, under the leadership of Irénée du Pont (1876-1963), president from 1919 to 1926, and Lammot du Pont (1880-1952), president from 1926 to 1940, the company became the world's leading chemical manufacturer producing smokeless powder, dynamite, dyes, cellophane, textile fibers, and artificial rubber. The records primarily document the presidency of Lammot du Pont, with some fragmentary records from the Irénée du Pont period.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company was a chemical company and began a research program in dyes in 1916. By the late 1920s the DuPont Company was one of the four major U.S. dye producers and controlled twenty-five percent of the market. The records consist of notebooks and procedures on dyes, which describe the colors, uses, applications, tests, and fastness and dying properties for dyes manufactured by DuPont and its competitors.

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) for the production of gunpowder. The organization charts show the evolution of DuPont's corporate structure, including the period 1919 to 1921, when the decentralized, multi-divisional form was adopted, and the diversification and restructuring of the 1980s. As the charts also show the names of company officials above supervisory rank, they may also be used to follow individual career paths.