Finding Aids

Ansco G. Bruinier, Jr. (1898-1993) was the Technical Advertising Manager for the Dyestuffs Division, Organic Chemicals Department at DuPont in the mid-twentieth century. His papers, which are fragmentary and include both work and personal documents, give insight into World War II and post-war era corporate sales and advertising strategies. Included in his work papers are interoffice correspondence, DuPont departmental organizational charts, and Dyestuffs Division advertisement proofs used in various trade journals representing the cotton, wool, paper, and textiles industries.

Ansco G. Bruinier, Jr. (1898-1993) served as the DuPont Company’s Technical Advertising Manager for its Organic Chemicals Department, Dyestuffs Division at Deepwater, New Jersey, from the 1930s until his retirement in 1963. In 1917, the Jackson Laboratory was established at Deepwater, New Jersey, as a major production facility for dyestuffs. This small collection consists of photographs which document a selection of highlights of Bruinier's career working in the Jackson Laboratory and in the Organic Chemicals Department. The photographs date from 1919 through 1969.

Charles J. Pedersen (1904-1989) was a research chemist with E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company who spent most of his career at the Jackson Laboratory in Deepwater, New Jersey, and the Elastomer Chemicals Department in Wilmington, Delaware. This collection consists of two laboratory notebooks from Jackson Laboratory from 1956.

Charles J. Pedersen (1904-1989) spent more than forty years as a DuPont research chemist in the Organic Chemicals and Elastomer Chemicals departments. Pedersen’s early investigations led to the development of a dramatically improved process for manufacturing tetraethyl lead, an important gasoline additive. His discoveries relating to the degradative effects of heavy metals on petroleum products resulted in thirty patents for antioxidants and other related products. Pedersen’s greatest achievement, however, came toward the end of his career when he discovered a new class of molecules that he called "crown compounds." Twenty years after his ground-breaking discovery was first disclosed publicly, Pedersen shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Pedersen’s research notebooks provide detailed accounts of laboratory preparations and analytical procedures. Also included in this collection are files compiled by Pedersen relating to his original research on crown compounds, as well as his earlier research.

Roy J. Plunkett (1910-1994) was the discoverer of Teflon, while working as a chemist at the DuPont Company. Plunkett's laboratory notebook documents the discovery of Teflon at DuPont's Jackson Laboratory in 1938. The notebook documents the experiments that led to the effective control of the rapid and explosive polymerization of tetrafluoroethylene gas into a solid polymer.