Finding Aids

Apollo 15 was the fourth manned lunar landing mission. The three-man crew was made up of David R. Scott (1932-), Alfred J. Worden (1932-), and James B. Irwin (1930-1991). The E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. DuPont materials were used in whole or in part for twenty of the twenty-one layers of the Apollo spacesuits. This is a NASA photograph of James Irwin on moon, August 1, 1971. Attached are strips naming the twenty-one different layers of his space suit.

Charles H. Rutledge (1901-1978) was the manager of the Product Information section for the Textile Fibers Department at the DuPont Company from 1944 to 1966. He authored numerous papers and was a contributor to textbooks and encyclopedias on textile fibers. This collection consists of two sets of files, those Rutledge maintained while at DuPont and those he compiled for a book he had planned to write following his retirement about the history of fibers.

Crawford H. Greenewalt (1902-1993) was an executive with the DuPont Company and president of the firm from 1948 to 1962. This collection consists of Greenewalt's papers from his time as president and chairman of the board. There is a broad range of external correspondence, internal company communications and reports, presidential working papers, transcripts of speeches, and published articles that make up the collection.

Donald Robert Hull (1911-1995) was a longtime employee at the DuPont Company mainly working with nylon and textile fibers. The collection pertains to his work at DuPont and Hull's consulting firm, Fiber Concepts, Inc.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. The Chamber Works was constructed as a dyeworks at Deepwater Point, New Jersey, in 1914. This small collection consists of materials about dyes and dyeing maintained by the analytical services technical supervisor at Chambers Works. Included are dye notebooks on silk, knitting, and hosiery; dye methods; a nylon textiles report; modern dye chemistry lecture notes; and translations of the Azo dye sections of a seminal German publication, "Fortschritte der Teerfarbenfabrikation," by P. Friedlaender.

The Pioneering Research Laboratory was the research and development facility for the DuPont Company's Textile Fibers Division. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company, established in 1802. The collection consists of technical photographs related to fibers research.

In 1952, the DuPont Company created the Product Information section within the Public Relations department. Its function was to produce news releases with photographs about DuPont and its products for indirect publicity and advertising purposes. This collection contains photographs of DuPont Company corporate events and proceedings, product trade shows and fairs, development and manufacturing processes, and the employees and facilities where the products were created. Most of the photographs were taken from the 1930s through the 1950s.

The Textile Fibers Department of the DuPont Company, established in 1936 as the Rayon Department, specialized in researching and developing synthetic fibers for fabrics such as Rayon, Nylon, Teflon, Corian, and Kevlar. This collection primarily contains video tapes (VHS and U-Matic). Most of the content on the VHS videotapes are different than that on the U-Matic videotapes, there are a few duplicate videos that are in both formats. The videotapes content are employee training videos related to management, customer service and safety, as well as, informational videos about product and services, company history and events. Additionally the collection contains photographs, slides, advertising and promotional materials.

In 1952, the DuPont Company organized a Product Information section within the Public Relations Department. Its main purpose was to create news releases accompanied by photographs that would be run editorially by trade journals and newspapers to create inexpensive publicity and indirect advertising. This collection consists of the Fabric master files and Textile reference files maintained by the Product Information Department. The majority of the photographs in the Fashion master files are posed fashion images featuring women modeling clothing made from DuPont synthetic fibers. There are images that feature children’s and men’s clothing as well. The fashion categories have been used as subseries and are as follows: Children and teens; Dress wear; Exports; Home furnishing; Home sewing/fashion fabrics; Hosiery; Intimate apparel; Italian couture; Knit wear; Men’s wear; New York couture; Paris couture; Sportswear/activewear; Swimwear; Touring kits; and Uniforms. Textile reference files contain press releases organized by fiber and then chronologically. The subseries are: Acetate, Dacron, Lycra, Multi-Fibers, Nylon, Orlon, Rayon, Reemay and Zepel.

Corfam® was a synthetic substitute for leather. Collection consists of photographs related to the development and manufacture of DuPont's Corfam® synthetic leather at the Newburgh, New York Corfam® pilot plant and research facility.

DuPont Company's Chestnut Run Laboratories first laboratory was the Textile Research Laboratory whose purpose was to test the effects of normal wear and tear on DuPont's line of synthetic fibers and fabrics, it opened in 1954 near Wilmington, Delaware. The Chestnut Run Technical Library is a branch of the DuPont Technical Libraries, which began in 1958. This collection consists of files related to the work of the scientists at the laboratory; their speeches, research articles, and some periodicals and scrapbooks related to textile design. There are also materials related to human resources polices and procedures; documents from a program about the future growth of the company; and a library subject file.

The Textile Fibers Department of the DuPont Company was established in 1936 (known then as the Rayon Department) which specialized in researching and developing synthetic fibers for fabrics such as Rayon, Nylon, Teflon, Corian, and Kevlar. This collection consists of materials once housed in the library of the Experimental Station and culled after the sale of the textile fibers business. The collection has been arranged into six series: Vertical file; Translation logs; Miscellany; Project indexes; Publications; Speeches.

The DuPont Company is a chemical company which commercially produces synthetic fibers such as Kevlar. This collection consists of three pieces of artwork which were created for the DuPont Company Textile Fibers Department and hung in a shared work area. The artwork are photostats and are signed “ELF”. The three pictures show various small, cheerful animals making synthetic fiber by three different methods that are actually used (in slightly more sophisticated form) industrially.

Kevlar is a synthetic fiber developed by chemists Stephanie Kwolek (1923-2014), Paul Morgan (1911-1992), and Herbert Blades in 1965 while working at the DuPont Company. The oral histories presented here document the research and development processes that transformed Kevlar from a novel polymer in the laboratory to a life-changing product in the marketplace.

Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company began operation in 1831 as a cotton cloth manufacturer in Rockford, Delaware. After the Civil War, the company concentrated on finishing cotton cloth. In later years it became famous for its Ban-lon artificial fiber but eventually withdrew from manufacturing in favor of licensing its processes and trademarks to other companies. The records consist of miscellaneous correspondence and reports, possibly from W. Ralph MacIntyre (1897-1984), president. The records include research reports and notebooks on dyeing, bleaching, printing, and finishing of fabrics.

Joseph Bancroft, an Englishman trained in textile weaving in Lancashire, established his own cotton mill on the Brandywine near Wilmington, Delaware in 1831. This operation became the Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company in 1889, and in 1929 it absorbed the Eddystone Manufacturing Co. These images include plant exteriors and interiors, officials and employees, aerials, workers' housing, machinery, floods, and dams and races on Brandywine Creek as well as many Ban-Lon and Miss America fashion photographs. This collection includes approximately 1060 images covering a period from the late 19th century to the 1960s.

J. Edward Norton (1925-2009) worked for the DuPont Company in the Textile Fibers Department as a technical marketing specialist. The notebook he maintained includes company technical memoranda and bulletins covering the processing of Nylon, Orlon, and Dacron, the production of wool-polyester blends, and the carding, spinning, knitting, and finishing of artificial fibers.

The Textile Fibers Department of the DuPont Company was established in 1936 as the Rayon Department, which specialized in researching and developing synthetic fibers for fabrics such as Nylon, Orlon, Dacron, and Lycra. The collection consists of oral history interviews conducted by Joseph Plasky, with former employees of DuPont's Textile Fibers department.

Polyacryl Iran Corporation (PIC) manufactured polyester and acrylic synthetic textiles in Iran. It was incorporated in August 1974 as a joint venture between E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, one of the largest U.S. chemical firms, and the Behshahr Industrial Development Corporation, a conglomerate run by the influential Lajevardian family. Because of political unrest within the country, DuPont shut the plant down in early 1979 with the hope of resuming operations at a later date. When Iran's textile industry was nationalized under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini following the Islamic Revolution, DuPont initiated legal action for claims against PIC and the Iranian government. An international court reviewed DuPont's claims and directed the Islamic Republic of Iran to reimburse DuPont for $42 million. The American records of the Polyacryl Iran Corporation document DuPont's role in the transfer of American technology to Iran, the fate of Western interests during the Iranian Revolution, and the subsequent expropriation and pursuit of damage claims. Because of the litigation surrounding the termination of DuPont's participation in the project, the records contain extensive plant design and managerial training documents that give a detailed picture of a state-of-the-art synthetic textile factory of the late 1970s.