Finding Aids

The E.I. du Pont de Nemours is a chemical company commonly known as the DuPont Company was established in 1802, and began by manufacturing gunpowder and later chemical compounds. The foundations for the Engineering Department were laid in 1902. The department’s purpose was to design and construct high explosives plants, design powder machinery and create extensions to existing plants. The DuPont Engineering Department collection consists of photographic material documenting Twentieth century construction projects throughout the many different E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company work sites, including some outside construction projects within the explosives and chemical industry. There are 209 work sites which are arranged in alphabetical order.

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 small collection consists of eight letter-size gunpowder advertising envelopes, including Peters cartridges, DuPont smokeless powder, Laflin & Rand, and Hazard Powder Company.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours Powder Company was incorporated on May 19, 1903. It was organized as an operating company to consolidate approximately 100 explosives manufacturers controlled by E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. This collection is a series of six advertising cards for E. I. du Pont de Nemours Powder Company's smokeless powders for shotguns (DuPont smokeless; Hazard smokeless; New E.C. Improved; New Schultze; Infallible smokeless) and black sporting powders (DuPont Rifle; Hazard Kentucky Rifle; L. & R. Orange Extra Sporting).

E. Paul du Pont (1887-1950) established Du Pont Motors, Inc., a manufacturing company of luxury automobiles, in 1919 in Wilmington, Delaware. He worked for a short time at the family business, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company which manufactured gunpowder. He was one of ten children of Francis Gurney du Pont (1850-1904) and Eliza Wigfa Simons du Pont (1849-1919). This small collection contains photographs of DuPont powder yards; family photographs; home exteriors; and postcard views of Longwood Gardens.

The War Department of the United States Government contracted with the DuPont Company to build and run a smokeless powder plant called the Old Hickory plant on the Cumberland River near Nashville, Tennessee during World War I. These panoramic photographs show overall views of DuPont Company's Old Hickory smokeless powder plant, also views of exterior and interior details.

In 1902, DuPont took control of Laflin & Rand, including the Haskell Works. Infallible and Ballistite powders were manufactured there. The works played an important role in smokeless powder production during World War I. The panoramic photographs depict views of the Du Pont Company's smokeless powder works in Haskell, New Jersey and the workers village nearby.

In 1904 the DuPont Company purchased the International Smokeless Powder and Chemical Company, which was then producing smokeless powder and nitrocellulose products in their plant in Parlin, New Jersey. This collection consists of seven panormaic photographs that show views of the Parlin, New Jersey plant, including views of production facilities and worker housing.

The DuPont Company purchased the land for a smokeless powder plant at Carney's Point, New Jersey (across the Delaware River from Wilmington, Delaware) in 1890. In 1892 it produced its first guncotton, and then the first smokeless powder. This collection consists of twenty panoramic photographs of Carney's Point smokeless powder plant, including exteriors of various buildings and groups of workers.

The Indiana Ordnance Works was built by the DuPont Company for the U.S. Government beginning in 1940. It manufactured military explosives, propellants, and smokeless powder. This collection consists of photographs of the Ballistics Lab of the Indiana Ordnance Works.

James R. Thomen (1926-) was manager of the Experimental Station from 1975 to 1985 when he retired. The DuPont Company's Experimental initially, was to be a small laboratory to screen inventions which were coming into the company from outside independent inventors specifically for research on black powder, smokeless powder, and dynamite, but soon its mission was altered and it became a large industrial research facility focused on innovative advancements in chemistry. This collection consists primarily of photographs of buildings at the Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware taken between 1910 and 1950.

The pulp keg mill was built around 1904 to manufacture an experimental design of black and smokeless powder container made essentially from paper. This album contains photographic prints of the construction of the pulp keg mill in the Hagley Yard of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. near Wilmington, Delaware around 1902 through 1905.

Walter Magee Annettee (1874-1955) was a DuPont Company dynamite salesman, who was based in Birmingham, Alabama. 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 and his son Eleuthère Irénée du Pont the company began with the production of gunpowder. These are illustrated envelopes advertising DuPont Company smokeless powder and blasting powder; Giant powder (a product of Atlantic Dynamite Co.); Atlas powder (a product of Repauno Chemical Co.); and Hercules powder (a product of Hercules Powder Co.).