The Atlantic Dynamite Company was one of the largest manufacturers of dynamite in the United States between 1882 and 1904. These are four volumes containing entries listing employees, hours worked, and wages paid at a dynamite plant at Kenvil, New Jersey.

The Craven-McDade family had several family members working in the gunpowder and explosives industry for the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company and later the Hercules Powder Company. These papers related to the Craven and McDade family of Henry Clay village in Delaware.

Dowling & Kennedy were railroad contractors. The partnership of Dowling & Kennedy and its predecessor, Reynolds, Dowling & Company, were typical of the many small firms that subcontracted to grade sections of railroad rights of way for large general contractors. This collection contains account books, vouchers, and statements covering the receipt of monies from the general contractor and its expenditure for labor and supplies. There are also timebooks, payrolls, and correspondence.

In 1801, French immigrants Eleuthère Irénée "E.I." du Pont (1771-1834) and his father Pierre Samuel "P.S." du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) organized the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company (alternatively referred to as the DuPont Company) in Paris for the purpose of manufacturing gunpowder in the United States. The next year E.I. du Pont purchased a mill site on the banks of the Brandywine Creek just north of Wilmington, Delaware, and the company would grow to be the preeminent gunpowder company in the United States for the next century. This collection comprises the nineteenth-century records of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. extending to the date of the second incorporation of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. in 1902. The company's twentieth-century records, with the 1902 reincorporation as the dividing point, are described in a separate finding aid as E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. twentieth-century records (Accession 0500.II).

James Gibbons of New Castle County, Delaware, was a powder worker at E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. This collection contains his certificate of naturalization, dated October 8, 1860, issued by the District Court held at Wilmington for the District of Delaware.