Finding Aids

Charles Milton Cooper (1900-1971) was a chemical engineer and an executive at the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. His papers primarily include notes and photographs produced during his time conducting bubble formation experiments at the DuPont Company’s Belle Plant, in Charleston, West Virginia.

Michael Somerville Withers (1926-1985) was a mechanical engineer and an inventor. He worked at the DuPont Company from 1953 to 1983. Withers is the holder/co-holder of fourteen United States patents for plastic laminates and heat exchangers. Withers's papers document his career with the DuPont Company on plastic laminates, heat exchangers, and seal rings. The papers are organized into seven series: Sabine River Works; Experimental Station; Nafion Laminator; Heat exchangers/heaters; Vespel seal rings; Pneumatic tension device; and Trade catalogs, pamphlets, and articles.

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.