E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company was established in 1802 by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) and his son Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834). The du Pont’s purchased a mill site on the banks of the Brandywine River just North of Wilmington, Delaware. During wartime the company was a major supplier for the United States government. During peacetime, the company marketed their product towards sportsmen and hunters.

The DuPont Company purchased the land for a smokeless powder plant at Carney's Point, New Jersey (across the Delaware River from Wilmington, Delaware) in 1890. In 1892 it produced its first guncotton, and in 1892 the first smokeless powder. The plant grew in response to demand from the Spanish-American War, but really boomed during World War I. The thousands of workers then employed were provided with company housing in a workers village. The plant continued production into the early 1970s, when it was abandoned and dismantled. John A. Dick (1879-1972), the first full-time photographer hired by the DuPont Company, documented the growth of the plant during WWI in these photographs.