Finding Aids

Cazenove Gardner Lee, Jr. (1882-1945) was a genealogist and prolific writer, who founded the Society of Lees of Virginia. This collection conists of photographs and negatives relating to family and career of Cazenove Gardner Lee, Jr. The images are primarily of various gunpowder mills and machinery.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company, which began as a manufacturer of gunpowder in 1802. The collection consists of photographs and prints that document the early history of the DuPont Company’s involvement in the gunpowder and explosives industries from the 1860s through the 1920s. The bulk of the collection are photographs of employees, executives, and plant views, including aftermaths of explosions and construction. This collection also includes a variety of advertisements for the DuPont Company as well as other non-DuPont related trades. A large portion of this collection are oversize materials (panoramic photographs and advertising posters).

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. The collection contains a typescript of newspaper notice entitled "Powder explosion of three wagon loads of powder at Wilmington, Del." from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin on June 1, 1854. Also, a photocopy of a later transcript on the same subject.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. Originally established as a black powder manufactory in 1802, the company eventually ventured into explosives, creating the Explosives Department in 1903. This small collection contains six reports on black powder and other accidental explosions at DuPont facilities. Additional materials are related to the DuPont Company's activities in the explosives industry. These include a history of explosions at the Brandywine Works from 1815 to 1898 and the Carney's Point Works from 1893 to 1903.

The Belin plant in Moosic, Pennsylvania was built by the DuPont Company in 1908 for the production of black powder, which it was doing by 1912. This collection consists of photographs of the aftermath of an explosion that occurred there on August 1, 1930.

The Hazard Powder Company was one of the largest gunpowder and explosives manufacturers in the United States in the late-nineteenth century. This small collection consists of fourteen photographs of views of Hazard Powder Company buildings. None of the images are dated, however, they appear to date from circa 1890s to the 1900s.

Francis Gurney du Pont (1850-1904) was the youngest son of Alexis I. du Pont (1816-1857) and Joanna Smith du Pont (1815-1876), and grandson of Éleuthère Irénée "E.I." du Pont (1771-1834), founder of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont Company. The collection contains a carbon typescript of "History of Explosions at Brandywine Mills" compiled from records by du Pont and also reported from his own experiences.

The collection comprises approximately 200 oral history interviews with 152 individuals conducted by museum staff between 1954 and 1990. The majority of the individuals interviewed had either worked at the DuPont Company powder yards on Brandywine Creek during the yards’ final decades of operation or had lived in the surrounding communities, although the collection also includes interviews with those who worked in other local industries. The interviews are largely biographical in nature covering a period from about 1900 to 1960 and address a wide range of subjects relating to daily life and work in the Brandywine Valley.

Pierre A. Gentieu (1842-1930) was a photographer and a long-term employee of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. Gentieu's papers include correspondence with du Pont family members and coworkers, an account book of powder packed at the Hagley Yard (1858-1902), a record book with lists of explosions (1882-1909), time work sheets of powdermen during the 1890s, and a list of the principal events in the powder yards from 1882 to 1911.