Irénée du Pont

Irénée du Pont I (December 21, 1876 – December 19, 1963) was a U.S. businessman, former president of the DuPont company and head of the Du Pont trust.

Biography

Early life

He was born on December 21, 1876 in New Castle, Delaware. He was a descendant of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. He graduated from Andover Academy in 1894 and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1897. While at MIT, he was a member of the Phi Beta Epsilon fraternity, where he was one of the first brothers, in the course of his lifetime, contributing over $4,000,000.

Career

He worked for Fenn's Manufacturing Contracting Company for a number of years before he joined DuPont. He was president of DuPont from 1919 to 1925. He oversaw DuPont at a time when eight workers were fatally poisoned with tetraethyl lead while he issued statements about there being "slight difficulties". He retired from the board of directors of DuPont in 1958.

Personal life

He built a mansion in Varadero, Cuba, which he named Xanadu. In 1957, Fortune estimated his wealth at between $200 million and $400 million, making him one of the two richest members of the Du Pont family at that time, and one of the twenty richest Americans (see Wealthiest Americans (1957)). In the 1930s, he was a proponent of eugenics.

Éleuthère Irénée du Pont

Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours (24 June 1771 – 31 October 1834), known as Irénée du Pont, or E. I. du Pont, was a French-American chemist and industrialist who founded the gunpowder manufacturer, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. His descendants, the Du Pont family, have been one of America's richest and most prominent families since the 19th century, with generations of influential businessmen, politicians and philanthropists.

Early life and Family

Du Pont was born 24 June 1771, in Paris, the son of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours and Nicole-Charlotte Marie-Louise le Dée de Rencourt. His father was a political economist who had been elevated to the nobility in 1784 by "letters patent" granted by King Louis XVI, allowing him to carry the honorable de Nemours suffix. Growing up on his father's estate, "Bois des Fossés", near Égreville, young du Pont was enthusiastic about his studies in most subjects, and showed particular interest in explosives. Du Pont married Sophie Dalmas (1775–1828) in 1791, and they had eight children.