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 Repauno Works manufactured high explosive dynamite. The company began as the Repauno Chemical Company on June 7, 1880 founded by Lammot du Pont (1831-1884). Lammot du Pont was a chemist working for the family business, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, a chemical company which originally produced gunpowder. This collection consists of material for the 100th anniversary of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company Repauno Works.

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.

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.