Eugene du Pont
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Eugene du Pont (1840-1902) was the first head of modern day DuPont. Son of Alexis I. du Pont and grandson of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. Eugene graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and joined the business in 1861. He was an assistant to Lammot du Pont at the Brandywine Mills laboratory and by 1886 filed two patent applications (gunpowder press and new variety of powder, brown prismatic). He became junior partner in 1864. He succeeded Henry A. du Pont as senior partner in 1889.
As senior partner, Eugene saw the completion of a new office in Wilmington and the new invention called the telephone. He saw the rise of the dynamite industry and helped form the Eastern Dynamite Company in 1895. In 1899, the du Pont company became E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. After Eugene's death, the company was brought under control by three of his nephews, Alfred I. du Pont, T. Coleman du Pont and Pierre S. du Pont.
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For corrections see "Alfred I. duPont" by Joseph Wall, 1990. Eugene followed his uncle "Boss" Henry as senior partner, not his cousin Henry A. du Pont, who never became senior partner. Also, the company was called "E. I du Pont de Nemours and Company" from its founding right through Eugene's presidency. The company name only changed when it was sold to the three cousins, after Eugene passed away. Eugene was not on the cutting edge of business management, and the company had sunk to the point of being sold at the end of Gene's leadership. The "MODERN" DuPont company begins when the cousins, Alfred I., T. Coleman, and Pierre S. purchase it in 1902. Alfred I. gets the credit for adding electric lighting and telephones to the power mills, and Eugene's new office was just outside the gates of the old du Pont estate, only a few hundred feet from the old office...not in Wilmington. When the cousins purchase the company, give it a new name (taking out the 'and'), they begin construction of the new huge multi-national headquarters in Wilmington.
