The Hanford Engineer Works in Hanford, Washington, was constructed between 1943 and 1945 to create the plutonium 239 and uranium 235 used in the atomic weapons needed for World War II. Sponsored by the Army Corps of Engineers, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company acted as the prime contractor. This collection contains two captioned albums, one of the Medical Division between 1943 and 1945, and the other of Hanford Yuletide Carnival in 1943. The films are various format copies of "War construction in the desert", created to document the building and running of the Hanford Engineer Works. Also included is a film of African American workers dancing in one of the mess halls and a farewell party of DuPont executives in 1948.

Peter K. Baumgarten (1926-2000) was a chemical engineer for the DuPont Company for thirty years who continued as a consultant for the company after his retirement. He worked as a chemical engineer for DuPont and Westinghouse, retiring from the Savannah River Site in 1993. He also taught math and physics part-time at the University of South Carolina (USC)-Aiken. This small collection consists of papers, speeches, notes, presentations, and articles that Baumgarten wrote while working at DuPont as a chemical engineer and then as a consultant. His research focused on ion exchange for decontamination and waste removal from radioactive sources such as the Savanah River Plant.