Lammot du Pont was an American businessman. He was the president of the Du Pont Company, an office in which he served from 1926 until 1940.
Background
Lammot Du Pont was born on October 12, 1880, at Nemours, near Wilmington, Delaware, the youngest son of Mary Belin and Lammot du Pont. After his father died in an explosion in 1884 Lammot's eldest brother, Pierre S. du Pont, assumed family leadership.
Education
Lammot Du Pont followed family tradition by attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he received a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering in 1901.
Career
Upon graduation Lammot Du Pont worked as a draftsman for the newly formed United States Steel Corporation. In 1902, upon the death of his cousin, Eugene du Pont, the head of the family explosives firm, Pierre du Pont, together with two cousins, Alfred I. Du Pont and T. Coleman Du Pont, took control of the family enterprise. The same year, at the urging of his brother Pierre, Lammot Du Pont took a job in the Du Pont Company's black powder mills. In 1915 he became superintendent of the black powder department and a vice-president of the company, which by then dominated American production of black powder, dynamite, and smokeless powder.
The outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 brought the Du Pont Company large orders for smokeless military powder and unprecedented earnings. Pierre Du Pont used war profits to purchase what became a 25 percent interest in General Motors and to diversify the Du Pont Company itself. During World War I, the company made major investments in paint, dyes, artificial leather, celluloid, and chemicals, which were administered by a miscellaneous manufacturing department. In 1915 Lammot Du Pont became its head. In 1926, succeeding his brothers Pierre and Irenee, respectively, he became president of the Du Pont Company, an office in which he served until 1940, when he became chairman of the board of directors, a position he held until 1948.
By the end of World War I the firm had ceased to be primarily an explosives manufacturer and had become a broad-based chemical company, a change that Lammot du Pont, as head of miscellaneous manufacturing, had helped to bring about. The Du Pont Company, unlike most industries, remained highly profitable during the depressed 1930's, and during World War II its engineering staff took a major part in atomic research and constructed for the government the Hanford atomic works in Washington state.
Strongly opposing a powerful central political authority, Lammot Du Pont resented governmental regulation of morals. He, in concert with his brother Pierre, opposed prohibition, and he served as head of the finance committee of the Association Against the Prohibition Movement. Long a Republican, by 1932 he considered President Hoover a spendthrift and favored Franklin D. Roosevelt, who promised to balance the budget; he believed that since the Du Pont Company prospered without debt, the federal government could do the same. Of course he quickly lost faith in the New Deal, and became a supporter of the American Liberty League. He particularly resented the 1934 Senate investigation, headed by Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota, into the World War I munitions makers, and vigorously defended his company. He died at his summer home on Fishers Island, New York.
Achievements
Views
Quotations:
"Armament does not originate war; warfare brings forth arms. "
Personality
Lammot Du Pont was in private life quiet, modest, and parsimonious. He disliked pomp and lavish displays of wealth and, despite the Du Pont Company's interest in General Motors (which he served as chairman of the board from 1931 through 1937) preferred to ride a bicycle the three miles to his office. On businesstrips, he always carried his own luggage.
Connections
Lammot Du Pont married four times. His first wife, whom he married in 1903, was Natalie D. Wilson; they had eight children before her death in 1918. In 1920 he married Bertha Taylor, who died in 1928. His third marriage, in 1930, to Carolene Hynson Stollenwerck, ended in divorce. In 1933 he married Margaret A. Flett; they had two sons.