1093
October, I!!% .~___~
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AMERICAN CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES -~ .-
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E. I. d u Pont de Nemours and Company
Oldegf Powder Milt in Ahmcrica. Ruilf by E. I. do Ponf in lRO2. Wllmington, Del.
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HERE art- a number of interesting Pacts not pciieially known tachemists orthepeoplein gencral of thisgeneration,
which had a bearing on the foundation in 1802 by Sleuthere lreliee du Pont de Neinours of what today has become one of the largest and most constructive chemical inanufacturing corporalions in this country, if not in the world. His father, Picrre Samuel du Pont de Nernours, though cducated for the practice of medicine, devoted himself to literature and Dolitics. He took a prominent part as a "Moderate" during the French Revolution and showed indomitable courage in his efforts to save his country. He and his son suffered imprisonmeiit with his friend Lavoisier and only escaped the guillotine through the timely death of Robespierre. He was a friend of such inen as Benjamin Franklin, Lafayette, Talleyrand, Turgot, and Quesnay. Ile and his son both fought in dcfense of the King oil thc mernorablc tenth of August and besides being president of the Constituent Assembly, he lieid other important offices. In 1788 as B boy of sixteen, E. I. du Pont began the study of chcmistiy a t Essonne in the hhoratory of Lavaisier. who was a t that time in charge of the manufacture of guiipowder for the French Govwmnent. It was lirrc that young du Pont tie~aniefamiliar with thc maimfacture of gunpowder. Lavoisier's position was one of the first to be supprcssed by the revolution in 1791, and du Pont joined his lather io the publishing business. In 1799, owing to broken fortune and the unsettled conditions in France, the entirc family came to this country, lather and son having raised capital and
formed it cornpany for the purpose of devclopiiigunused land in the South. While out Iora day'sshooting with a friend they had shot away all of their powder and bought a new supply in the neighborhood. The high price and bad quality of the powder led him to investigate the industry in this country and then he hecanie convinced that there was real opportunity for a powder factory to be built and managedalong thclines of theFrench Govunmentnorks. He immediately returned to I'rance and raised by subscription among his friends some 86,000 and ordered the necessary machinery and raw materials to start his enterprise. His machinery was made a t the Arsenal and Government works at Essonne and his plans werc made by French Government draftsmen. n a letter t o his father six years later he wrote: "In four years I have made 600.000 Ibs. of powder that would have come from England if I had not m?de it; therefore it is only the English I have injured. This truth was well understood in France when I was given every facility for procuring my machinery." So it was that this young chemist, or rather chemical engineer, founded the business which has developed into the great du I'ont institutioii of today. E. I. du Pont died on October 31, 1834. He was a man of great courage and of indomitahle will t o overcome great, and a t timcs what appeared to be insuperable, difficulties, of strrling integrity and a lovable character worthy of his great father. These characteristics have hem domiuant in all of his desceiidants who have had the privilege of carrying on the great business which has been developed from the small one that he founded.
1094
I.VDUS2'RIAL BA'D EN1: X : I N E ~c m I ~x m m Y
Vol. 17, No. 10
after yetti's of experience or wlieii a reoigariizatioii took place owing to the death or retirement of a senior partner. considerable line of chemicds. Lammot du Pont, son of Alfred Victor, was referred to in 1853 "our chemist." four years after his gradoation from thr E. I . dii Poiit's sori, .Allied Victor. sncccidrd him i n the zm~imgcversity o f Peniisyl\rania. I n 1857 he introduced the use of meiit of the Imrincss. He studied chcmistry under Thomas Cooper ate of soda in place of nitrate of potash in tlie manufacture in Dickinson College who taught science there from I81 1 to I815 and afterwzrd i n Phiindrlphia. Cooper WLS a thorough scientific of blasting powder, for which he secured a patent. This disinvestigator and, judging from ymmg du I'ont's o w n work, he was COVPIY was B w r y important one, not only financially hut as an advance in the art. Hc was a chemical engineer of great ability undou1,trdly inspired arid traiiieil to r a r y out his researches in and not only built a iiew powder factory in the anthracite a truly sciciitific manner. region b u t also later huilt what has since become the largest While at Dickinson, Alfred du Pont made B study ondcr drnaniitc i h n t in the world. He developed new lmwders for Coopcr of the colors imparted the Ordnance 1)epartmerrt snd was a pioneer in the develop to thc flame by metallic salt m m t , of not only black prismatic, hut also ol brown prismatic powder in this country. Some of this develoyment took place solutions. The p r o c c d i i i e bcfore the Civil War. consisted in dipping a hit of cotton in a solutiom 01 some Owing to scarcily of saltpeter its production from Chile saltchloride, pressing thc cotton, getcr and potash was started in several places by double dcthen dipping into alcohol and composition, and this process has been carried on by the comholding the cotton in the pany ever sinc?. flame of a lamp, t o which the Mrs. B . G. du l'ont, inlier history of E. I. du Pont de Ncmours color was imparted. This, & Company, from which much of this material is taken, says of says f3dgar P. Smith, is unhini. "The chemical work in which he was so successful kept him doubtedly it first attempt at in tliv ri,finery and in the laboratory very consrantly." In 1872 thc recognition of meti& by the compaiiy was making twenty-four kinds of gunpowder and colored flames. seventeen kinds of blasting powder, and sold as by-products Flrwasevernlert tokeenuo refined saltpeter, sulfur, charcoal, and s&ty i*m Alfred d u Poor with his times and, although Alfred Nobel's patent far President, 1834 to 1850 and France refused the process of making nitroRnnland ~~. " tu purchase Schoenbein's patents on "Gun Cotton" or "Cotton glyccrol in 1865 s w n came to Gunpowder," he determined t o investigate it himself. He wrote: the attcntion of thcduPonts, "Thc discovery is brilliant and such as to create astonishment, hut owing to thp many accibut the introduction of gun cotton in common use must be the dents that occurrcrl in its work of time because the cost of preparing it is high and it will manufacture Henry du Yont, require years before the application of machinery to its manufacthcn head 01 the firm, would ture can make it cheap eoougli." have nothing to do with it; His experiments on gun cotton wliich he made himself led him in fact, when Robel's o w ~ i to the above concIu&n. His conclusions have proved correct, plant near Stockholm blcw up as it mas thirty to forty years before this material became uselul i n 1869, its imporration into for either military or commercial purposes. Alfred du Pont dc- England and Belgium wa vised a new instrumenl, with which he proved the interesting fact prohibited. It was not until that there is no relation between thestrength aiid the quickness of lR7F that he admitted that gunpowder. He also consid- Herculcs powder (black powerably improved the manu- der soaked in nitroglycerol) facture of spurting powder. was the best of all explosives. Eugene du Pent I n 1850 Alfred resigned Lammot du Pont, however, President, 1889 to 1902 and the management fell upon was not satisfied and the rcchis hrother Henry, who was ords sbow that he had been experimenting on the new explosives. educated at West Point and for he felt that the day must come when his firm would do its share served for some time in the of the manufacture. HC madc plans for P dynamite plant, and Army. Henry du Pont was in January, 1880. it was announced that the company was going not a chemist, bot his engiinto the manufacture of high explosives. He organized the neering training gave him an Kepauno Chemical Company and became its Drcsident, resigninterest in efficiency and re- ing from the parent company in January, 1882. He not only deduction in cost of manuiacsigned the plant but laid out the details ofthe experimental work. t u x His partners were his He was brilliantly successful and founded also a great industry. hrotlier Alexis and his neph- Unfortunately, in carrying out some plant-scalc experiments on ews 13. I. du Pont, Znd, and the separation of nitroglycerol from the waste acid to save the latter, instead of drowning it all in water as had heen the pracice, he was killed by an explosion, and his brilliant career was Ilrnry du Punt tioii introduced and pat rought to an untimely end. Mrs. du Pont in her book says: President. 1850 t" I889 t a m m o t du I'ont's death was an appalling loss to the firm. He the mrtnl kcg, whie as a brilliant chemist, a skilful and practical machinist, fearIxen used now for many years for packing black powder. From the very beginning the husincss was conducted as a part- less a l n m t to reeklesners in experimenting. etc." Iiugcne du Poiit, who became head of the firm in 1889 and first nership and x-as entirely mviiagcd b5- the senior partner, and president 01 the corporation in the Same year, was educated at i n 1899, wlim tlic business was incorporated, all the stockholders the University of Pennsylvania. He spent much of his life in were members of the family. The younger members of the family were factory superintendents and in gencral became partners factory mmm,gcmcnt and in tlic laboratory in the development of
In the carly days the cuniim~ysold refiiicd saltpeter, charcoal, pyroligneous acid, iroii liquor (a red dycj, and c r c o s o t e a very
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hronw prismatic i w d w , assisted during part of thc time by I h n c i s G. du Punt. I n 1881 the du Pont Company succeeded in making brown prismatic powder which was satisfactory t o thc Government, and iii 1880 a thorough investigation of Euroi~ean powders of the same nature showed that they were not superior to the du Pont powdci. This work involved a long research in the preparation of a proper form of charcoal. Much of the im. portant mechanical work in devising safe, efficient presses foi the production of this powder was done by Alfred I. dtl Pont. Francis G. du Pont WAS educated at the University of Pennsylvania sild afterwards studied chemistr,. under Professor Gmth and I x c ~ m can rRlcieiit chemical engineer. He not only supcrintendd the rnaiiufacturc of powder ut homc, but designed and built the Moor plant in Iowa and made all the drawings and blueprints in his own homc. He was the inventor of, and dtevelopcd the manufacture of, the celelxated du Pont smokeless powder, and with the assistance of Pierre S. du Pont, afterwards president and now chairinan of the board of the company, and also with Francis I. and other membcrs of the family, developed the manufacture of government military smokeless powder. Francis I. du Pont studied chemistry at Yale. Pierre S. d u Pont and Irenee du Pont, now presidelit of thc corporation, arc chemical engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Lammot du Pont, first vice presi.dent, is a civil engineer from the same institution. Up t o the time of the death of Eugciie d u Pont in 1902, practically all the partners and superintendents of the works and Btockholders of the original firm and corporation were members of the family, extending over a period OF one hundred years. At that time none of the older members ai the company were willing tct undertake the management either 011 account of ill health or for other reasons. The aBairs and hitcrests of the o m p a w had bemmc so complex that it was decidcd by the majority of the stockholders to sell out, so Alfred I. du Pont in conjunction with a cousin, T.Coleman du Pont. now Senator du Pont, and the ahove-mentioned Pierre S. du Pont, organized the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Powder Company, which bought out the old company and consolidated all of the interests OF the old company into the new one. This move brought about a new era in the history of the company--all of the black powder. dynamite, and smokclcss powder interests being brought together. Just beforc this consolidation the &astern Dynamite Company, which controlled the Repauno Chemical Company and other d y n a m i l c companies. established the Eastcm Laboratory lor research and soon
afterwards the company oigsnizcd amtlicr research laboratory enlled the Experimental Station on the Brandywine. I n 1911 these two laboratories were placed under a ~ o i n n i hcad ~ n as chem-
ical director of the company. With tllc manuketure of dynamite and smokeless powder, the manufacture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid, ammonium nitrate and acid recovery became ncccss~rywith the accompanying employment of malty chemists. Among the older chemists connectrd with the dynamite end of the busincss should be mentioiled Joiin C. Schroedcr, R. S. Penniman, many years suprrintcndent of the Kenvil plant, and 0. 11. Jackson, sopuriotendrnt of the Repauno plant after the death of Lammot d u Poiit. From 1YO2 t o 1912 thc business TVBS very successful. hut duritis the latter year part of its business was scyaratPd lrom i t by dccrce of the United States Court nnd two indepcndent competing comyanies, the Hercules Powder Company and the Atlas Powder Company, were created out of its substance. The court was so convinced that much of the du Pont Compmy's success was due t o its research laboratories that i t required the laboratories of the du Font Company t o serve the two new companies for a. period of five years. The court was afraid that new developments in these laboratories might prevent the S U C C ~ S S of the new companies. After this dissolution it became tiecessary for the company t o find new useful fields for its expanding financial resources, and it decided t o embark into chemical lines other than explosives, but related t o the chemical activities with which i t had had experience. It purchased the paint and heavy chemical busiiless of Harrison Brothers & Company, which WLF lounded in 1793 and has an interesting history in itself. Based on the use of cellulose and nitrocellulose, i t embarked 011 the artificial leather business, the pyralin, the pyroxylin lacquer, the artificial silk or Rayoil. and the Cellophane business, and only recently has decided t o enter the synthetic atmospheric nitrogcn business. The entry into the dye business was logical owing to its close relation t o the explosives business, and particularly t o those processes involving nitration reduction, etc., such as trinitrotoloenr, picric acid, and tetryl. The company's development and activities during the World War are too well known t o require attention at this time, but it is interesting t o not? that 8 company founded by a French powdermaker more than a century and a quarter ago was in a position to be such an important factor in saving the French Republic from defeat with ample strpplies of powder. C W A ~ L EL. S REESE
Left-T. C. du Ponf. President. 1901 fo 191s RiBht-Plerre S. du Pont. President. 1915 fo 1919 tipper-Irenee du Pont. President. 1919
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