Finding Aids

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.

Henry A. Weldy and members of the Shindel family purchased the small Huhn Powder mill outside Tamaqua, Pennsylvania on the banks of the Little Schuylkill River. They operated it as the H. A. Weldy Powder Company. Illustrations on the lithograph depict Tunnel Mills and Edgeworth Mills, which comprised the H. A. Weldy Powder Company.

The Hercules Powder Company was one of the companies created from the break up of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours "powder trust" in 1911 as ruled by a U.S. Supreme Court decision. In its early years as a separate company, it continued to produce explosives and dynamite and used advertising styles and devices. This item is a poster depicting a World War I soldier leaving home and telling his hunting dog, "Not this trip Old Pal."

The Laflin and Rand Powder Company, one of the largest gunpowder manufacturers in the nineteenth century, was formed from several predecessor companies. The company was acquired by DuPont in October of 1902, and it was operated as a subsidiary. This is a group of four display card advertisements for Laflin & Rand Powder, probably for point-of-sale or counter display.