In the years leading up to the Second World War, the United States government initiated a massive effort to ensure that adequate supplies of essential materials would be readily available should the country's armed forces become actively engaged in military conflict. At the request of the Army Ordnance Department, the DuPont Company participated in these procurement programs by undertaking the design, construction, and operation of plants for the manufacture of military explosives and other chemical products essential to the successful prosecution of the war. The records of the Explosives Department consist of special reports to the Executive Committee, the files of general manager Edward B. Yancey, and the files of powder superintendent Charles E. Seymour.

Wallis Gartside Hines (1919-2014) was a chemical engineer employed at the Kankakee Ordnance Works from 1942 to 1943, a war plant of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company located south of Joliet, Illinois. His notes describe the steps to be followed in the manufacture and refining of sodium and lead azide and for the laboratory analysis necessary for quality control.