DuPont went from making gunpowder to inventing nylon, Teflon and Kevlar
A French refugee started DuPont in 1802 to make better gunpowder on a Delaware creek. A century later it controlled most of America's explosives trade, and then its laboratories turned out a stream of materials, from nylon and neoprene to Teflon, Kevlar and Lycra, that still shape everyday life.
Éleuthère Irénée du Pont was a Huguenot Protestant whose family fled revolutionary France and religious persecution for America. Two years later, with French capital and French machinery, he opened gunpowder mills on the Brandywine Creek near Wilmington. The business added dynamite in the 1880s and smokeless powder in the 1890s, and by the early 1900s held nearly two-thirds of the explosives market. It even published a 1910 brochure called Farming with Dynamite, promoting blasting out tree stumps. In 1912 the courts ruled its dominance a monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act and forced it to spin off rival powder firms.
Research became the engine of growth. The Experimental Station, opened in 1903, was among the earliest industrial research labs, and work moved into cellulose chemistry and lacquers. The company also placed a large bet on cars: Pierre S. du Pont invested in General Motors from 1914, DuPont put in 50 million dollars by 1919, and he went on to lead GM as it became the world's biggest carmaker, until antitrust law forced the connection apart in 1957.
The 1920s and 1930s brought the breakthroughs. With a French partner DuPont made rayon and then cellophane in Buffalo. In 1928 it hired chemist Wallace Carothers, who invented the synthetic rubber neoprene, the first polyester superpolymer and, in 1935, nylon. A venture with GM began producing the refrigerant Freon in 1930, and DuPont devised the numbering system still used for refrigerants such as R-12. Later polymers included Teflon, Mylar, Kevlar, Nomex, Tyvek and Lycra.
The modern company is narrower. It merged with Dow Chemical in 2017 as DowDuPont, then split into three, with materials science taking the Dow name, farming going to Corteva, and DuPont keeping specialty products. It now serves healthcare, water, construction and industry, selling items like Tyvek, Styrofoam insulation and water filtration membranes.
Source: DuPont
