Award-winning journalist Gerard Colby takes readers behind the scenes of one of America’s most powerful and enduring corporations; now with a new introduction by the author Their name is everywhere. America’s wealthiest industrial family by far and a vast financial power, the Du Ponts, from their mansions in northern Delaware’s “Chateau Country,” have long been leaders in the relentless drive to turn the United States into a plutocracy. The Du Pont story in this country began in 1800. Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, official keeper of the gunpowder of corrupt King Louis XVI, fled from revolutionary France to America. Two years later he founded the gunpowder company that called itself “America’s armorer”—and that President Wilson’s secretary of war called a “species of outlaws” for war profiteering. Du Pont Dynasty introduces many colorful characters, including “General” Henry du Pont, who profited from the Civil War to build the Gunpowder Trust, one of the first corporate monopolies; Alfred I. du Pont, betrayed by his cousins and pushed out of the organization, landing in social exile as the powerful “Count of Florida”; the three brothers who expanded Du Pont’s control to General Motors, fought autoworkers’ right to unionize, and then launched a family tradition of waging campaigns to destroy FDR’s New Deal regulatory reforms; Governor Pete du Pont, who ran for president and backed Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Republican Revolution; and Irving S. Shapiro, the architect of Du Pont’s ongoing campaign to undermine effective environmental regulation. From plans to force President Roosevelt from office, to munitions sales to warlords and the rising Nazis, to Freon’s damage to the planet’s life-protecting ozone layer, to the manufacture of deadly gases and the covered-up poisoning of Du Pont workers, to the reputation the company earned for being the worst polluter of America’s air and water, the Du Pont reign has been dappled with scandal for centuries. Culled from years of painstaking research and interviews, this fully documented book unfolds like a novel. Laying bare the bitter feuds, power plays, smokescreens, and careless unaccountability that erupted in murder, Colby pulls back the curtain on a dynasty whose formidable influence continues to this day. Suppressed in myriad ways and the subject of the author’s landmark federal lawsuit, Du Pont Dynasty is an essential history of the United States.

This book looks at the powerful family behind the world's largest chemical company. The Du Ponts are one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the world. From their complex of buildings in downtown Wilmington, Delaware, they direct the workings of a vast network of interlocking companies that encompasses the world. They rule the state of Delaware as their private duchy, and they influence and control the lives of thousands of employees and millions of citizens. Here is the truly revealing story of this family, from the arrival in this country of Eleuthere Irenee du Pont, who was to found the firm that thought of itself as 'America's armorer.

On December 14, 1739, a second son was born to a Parisian watchmaker, named Samuel Dupont, and his wife. He was called Pierre Samuel, and he was to found one of the most famous dynasties in the world. Pierre Samuel came to the United States on New Year's Day, 1800, penniless, after surviving a harrowing voyage with his two sons. From those rather humble beginnings grew one of history's greatest manufacturing empires. Marc Duke has told the story of the du Pont dynasty through the eyes of the du Ponts themselves, and in doing so has written a brilliant and dramatic social history of both the company and the people who built it. Controversial, cantankerous, and very often holier-than-thou, the du Ponts were larger than life on the American landscape. -- From publisher's description.

Hidden in one of the smallest states of the Union, living in feudal splendor, is a singular family — proud, aloof, prolific —, which today controls a greater slice of American wealth than has ever before fallen into private hands. They are the Du Ponts of Delaware. The Du Ponts, who have long dominated Delaware, have only recently emerged into the larger arena of national affairs. In 1932, several prominent members of the clan, ardent wets, supported Franklin D. Roosevelt. This they consider their biggest blunder and are now vigorously fighting the New Deal through the American Liberty League. The present volume is the first full length portrait of this extraordinary family. “THIS is a lively excursion into the private annals of the mighty Du Pont family which has lived in splendour for five generations on its feudal barony in Delaware—industriously making gunpowder and profits. The inside story is revealed with wit and enthusiasm.”

The rise and fall of the DuPonts of Deleware.