(First edition. Biography of this Du Pont family member. M...)
First edition. Biography of this Du Pont family member. Much on the Du Pont company. Newspaper clipping loosely inserted. 599 pages. cloth, dust jacket.. 8vo..
Alfred Irenee du Pont was an American businessman. He was a director of the board and Vice President of operations at E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company.
Background
Alfred Irenee Du Pont was born on May 12, 1864, near Wilmington, Delaware, the son of the second Eleuthere Irenee du Pont and his wife, Charlotte (Henderson) du Pont. He was the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son of Eleuthere Irenee du Pont, founder of the Du Pont powder business in America. Both of Alfred's parents died when he was thirteen.
Education
Du Pont had a flair for chemistry, but he was so eager to be doing practical things that at twenty he cut short his course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in order to enter one of the Du Pont plants.
Career
In 1888 Alfred aided in directing the construction of a large blasting-powder plant near Keokuk, Iowa. In 1889 he spent some time in France, Germany, England, and Belgium, studying, upon request of the United States Ordnance Department, a new brown or prismatic powder then being developed in Europe. As a result, the Du Ponts contracted for the right to manufacture this powder in America.
When Eugene Du Pont died in 1902, there seemed to be no one to take his place as executive head of the company, and the partners, discouraged, had decided to offer the business to Laflin & Rand, a competitor, for $12, 000, 000; but Alfred spoke up at a meeting of the clan and said, "I'll buy the company". He had made a secret trip to induce his cousin Thomas Coleman Du Pont to enter the company as executive. Another cousin, Pierre S. Du Pont, was to be treasurer, Alfred himself the technician. The other members of the family agreed, and the three cousins took over the company at a cost to themselves of only $3, 000, the incorporation expenses for the new concern, which they capitalized at $20, 000, 000. The three promoters took more than $8, 000, 000 of the new stock for their organization fees. All this stock was pledged as security on the $12, 000, 000 purchase price of the old company.
During the rapid growth of the business in the years that followed, Alfred designed new machinery and developed the prismatic powder used by the United States in large caliber guns.
When in 1915 T. Coleman Du Pont sold all his stock in the company to a group headed by Pierre, Alfred was furious. He, with six other Du Ponts, brought suit to block the sale. Alfred was thereupon ousted from the company, though he still remained the largest shareholder, next to Pierre. He bought the Wilmington Morning News and through it fought Pierre and his faction, but he lost his case in the courts. When Coleman Du Pont aspired to enter the United States Senate in 1916, Alfred bought several Delaware small-town newspapers and put an independent ticket in the field, defeating not only Coleman, but even his elderly cousin, Henry Algernon Du Pont, for reelection as senator.
At the close of the First World War, Alfred Du Pont organized the Nemours Trading Corporation to sell American goods to Europe, and bought the Grand Central Palace in New York to use for international trade expositions. Then came the financial collapse in Europe, and Alfred lost millions. Pierre arranged a loan for him on condition that he give up all his Delaware newspapers. In 1926 he removed to Florida, where he established another vast manor, "Epping Forest, " outside of Jacksonville, and became a bank president. In 1935 he died at his home of a heart attack. His estate was appraised in the Florida courts at $32, 736, 000. After providing liberally for his wife and children, he left the bulk of his estate to the Nemours Foundation for the care of crippled children and of the aged and indigent.
(First edition. Biography of this Du Pont family member. M...)
Interests
Du Pont's diversions were literary and musical; he even composed music.
Connections
On January 4, 1887, Du Pont was married to Bessie Gardner, daughter of a prominent New England family. Du Pont fell in love with his second cousin, Alicia (Bradford) Maddox, whose mother was a Du Pont, and divorced his first wife to marry her, on October 15, 1907. Many of his kin were thereafter estranged from him, and the bitterness grew to such a degree that he actually brought suits for slander against some members of the family. He built a great country mansion of a hundred rooms, called "Nemours, " said to be one of the most luxurious homes in America. On January 22, 1921, he was married to Jessie D. Ball. He had four children: Alfred Victor, Madeleine, Bessie Cazenove, and Victorine Elise.