Background
Henry du Pont was born on August 8, 1812 at Eleutherian Mills, Wilmington, Delaware, United States. He was the second son of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont and Sophie Madelame Dalmas.
( Freud's assumption that our emotions are instinctual an...)
Freud's assumption that our emotions are instinctual and innate, and that they reside in our unconscious, is still the dominant notion in our conventional wisdom. If our emotions are instinctual and innate, then they have little relationship to our needs and values, and they do not change in the course of development. This book advances a contemporary theory of emotional development, a neo-Piagetian theory that postulates that both our feelings and emotions are cognitive constructions that are informed by our needs and values, and that our feelings and emotions change considerably in the course of development. Using interview and original case material, the author illustrates his theory's application to both short- and long-term psychotherapy, as well as the implications for research, assessment, emotional education, and counseling.
https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Development-Theory-Applications-Neo-Piagetian/dp/0275948390?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0275948390
Henry du Pont was born on August 8, 1812 at Eleutherian Mills, Wilmington, Delaware, United States. He was the second son of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont and Sophie Madelame Dalmas.
Du Pont was a student at Mount Airy Military School, Germantown, Philadelphia, from 1823 to 1829, when he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1833, and was made second lieutenant in the 4th Artillery at Fort Monroe, Virginia.
Du Pont served in the Creek country of Alabama, but in June 1834 resigned his commission to join his father in the manufacture of gunpowder. He had served in the mills sixteen years.
Profits flowing to the company as a result of the Crimean War in 1854 helped Henry du Pont in his policy of progressive management. His older brother Alfred, head of the firm before him, had maintained the tradition of the founder, but when Henry assumed charge a new economic era was dawning. The new farms, mining operations, and railroads needed power.
In 1857 Lamont du Pont was granted a patent which enabled the firm to use nitrate of soda from Peru, and much cheaper than the Indian saltpetre, in the manufacture of blasting powder. In 1859 the company bought mills on Big Wapwallopen Creek, near the anthracite coalfields, for the manufacture of this blasting powder, thus partially solving an old problem of transportation. This same year Henry du Pont had experiments conducted in the making of hexagonal cakes of powder of large grain for big guns, but this work was interrupted by the Civil War and was not resumed for fifteen years, when it was notably successful. The firm refused to furnish powder to Virginia while the state’s loyalty to the Union was in doubt.
In 1861 Du Pont was appointed major-general of the Delaware forces, and put down disaffection which, in a state containing the country’s largest powder mills, promised to be dangerous. The supply of saltpetre failing, the firm was made the agent of the government in purchasing enormous supplies in England, but the prospect of war demand for powder did not deceive Du Pont, who declared that “the extra demand for powder for war purposes will not equal the regular demand which would have existed had peace continued. ” The company lost its trade in the South, and, on account of possible capture of cargoes and use by the Confederacy, was prohibited from shipping powder from New York and Philadelphia, which meant that the West Indies, Mexico, and, for a time, California, went unsupplied. Independent mills were established in California in 1861 to meet the needs of the miners.
Du Pont supplied army and navy with powder at low prices despite cash payments in the manufacture, high taxes, and very slow remittance on the part of the government. The intense competition which led up to the panic of 1873 and the stagnation which followed the crisis brought on consolidation in the powder business.
The Du Pont firm bought a controlling interest in the Hazard Powder Company in 1876 and in the California Powder Works the same year. Du Pont as he grew older became more cautious. He discountenanced the experiments in “high explosives” which were increasingly successful after 1865, and not until 1876 did his firm begin the manufacture of Hercules powder. He gave his attention principally to the finances of the company, and conducted an enormous correspondence with 500 agents and a halfdozen associated companies, refusing to have a stenographer, and writing by hand 6, 000 letters a year.
( Freud's assumption that our emotions are instinctual an...)
At first a Whig, du Pont became a Republican, and was prominent in Delaware politics.
Henry du Pont was of autocratic manner with strangers, but his workmen were nevertheless on easy terms with him.
Henry du Pont married Louisa Gerhard in 1837.
