From 1802 to 1921, Eleutherian Mills was a gunpowder mill site used for the manufacture of explosives by the duPont family business. The name also refers to the house and gardens on the hill above the mills, which was the first duPont family home in America. This collections contains slides and color snapshot photographs of the garden at Eleutherian Mills. Also included is an 8 mm. home movie.

Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) was a noted French Physiocrat and economic advisor to Jacques Necker and King Louis XVI. In 1784, Louis XVI made him a noble through the process of noblesse de lettres, which added the de Nemours suffix to his name. In the aftermath of the French Revolution he and his family emigrated to the United States where his son Eleuthère Irénée du Pont established the gun powder manufacturer E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. These photographs show a close-up of the Place Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours metal plaque and the building on which it hangs in Nemours France, ancestral home of the du Pont family.