Alfred I. du Pont

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Alfred I (rénée) du Pont

Alfred Irénée du Pont ( May 12, 1864 - April 28, 1935 ) was an American industrialist , investor and philanthropist . As a member of the influential Du Pont family, Alfred du Pont initially worked in the management of the family business, the gunpowder factory EI du Pont de Nemours and Company (better known as Du Pont or DuPont) in Delaware . Retired during the dispute, Alfred began his own business and invested in land and banks in Florida . On his death he left a fortune in the millions, most of it in the Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust .

Life

Alfred Du Pont was born in the Brandywine Valley in Delaware. His great-great-grandfather, Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, emigrated to this area with his sons after the French Revolution . Alfred's parents were Eleuthère Irénée du Pont II and Charlotte Shepard Henderson; he had two older sisters and two younger brothers. When Alfred was 13, his mother was admitted to a mental institution after an attack of hysterics and died within a week. A month later the father died of tuberculosis. The children who had become orphans did not want to be separated from each other. The girls stayed at the family seat of Swamp Hall while Alfred was sent to boarding schools: first to the religious Shinn Academy in New Jersey , then two years later to the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts . After leaving school, Alfred enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ; His roommate was his cousin T. Coleman du Pont .

family business

In 1884, Alfred began working in his family's gunpowder factory. Most of his more than 200 patents date from this period .

In 1887 he married his cousin Bessie Gardner (1864-1949), with whom he had four children. In 1889 Eugene du Pont took over management of the company and renamed it EI du Pont de Nemours and Company . Alfred du Pont was a partner, but not a member of the management.

When Eugene du Pont died in 1902, Coleman du Pont became President of the company, Pierre S. du Pont became Treasurer and Executive Vice President, while Alfred du Pont was Vice President responsible for black powder production.

Divorce and new marriage

In a hunting accident in 1906 Alfred lost an eye and divorced his first wife Bessie, drove them and their children from Swamp Hall and had the family home destroyed. The following year, Alfred married Mary (Alicia) Heyward Bradford (* 1875), a newly divorced second cousin. She had previously been married to Alfred's secretary, George Amory Maddox.

Nemours Mansion

Alfred adopted Bradford's daughter Alicia Maddox and had the famous architects Carrère and Hastings build a five-story property in Wilmington, Delaware , the Nemours Mansion and Gardens , for his new family . Two children from his new marriage died early.

His relatives and business partners Coleman and Pierre du Pont expressed their solidarity with Alfred's first wife. When Alfred left the family business in 1914 for health reasons, a legal dispute developed over a reallocation of shares, through which Pierre du Pont had made himself the majority owner of the company.

Alfred du Pont began investing in newspapers instead, using his power as a publisher to prevent Coleman from running for president as well as the re-election of Henry A. du Pont to the US Senate . After a bad deal, he was nearly bankrupt when his wife died in January 1920. In addition to his visual impairment, Alfred was almost deaf.

Jessie Dew Ball, twenty years younger than her, had met Alfred when she was 14 and they had kept in touch ever since. Alfred wooed the elementary school teacher who had moved to California. They married on January 22, 1921.

Ball du Pont adopted Denise, Alfred's daughter from his second marriage, and cemented the relationship with his family. Her younger brother Edward Ball began working for his brother-in-law in 1923 and moved to Delaware, where he managed Alfred's fortune.

Move to Florida and Legacy

After Pierre du Pont was appointed Delaware Tax Commissioner in 1925, Alfred, Jessie and Edward moved to Jacksonville, Florida in 1926 and settled there permanently. Alfred bought a piece of land on the St. Johns River and had a 25-room property built. His wife named it Epping Forest , after the Virginia settlement of Mary Ball Washington , a relative.

After smaller real estate deals in Florida, Alfred du Pont turned to banking and acquired a stake in Florida National Bank (FNB) in Jacksonville. When he died in 1935 at the age of 70, his fortune was estimated at more than US $ 56 million; after wealth taxes of $ 30 million, that remained $ 26 million that went to a trust controlled by Ball du Pont and her brother. In 1939 the Trust was valued at $ 72 million; 1981 $ 2 billion and 2006 $ 4.5 billion.

A journalism award from Columbia University is named after Alfred .

Individual evidence

  1. Harland N. Prechel: Big business and the state: historical transitions and corporate transformation, 1880s-1990s . SUNY Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-7914-4593-8 , p. 103 (accessed August 18, 2010).
  2. a b c d Sharon Hernes Silverman: Brandywine Valley: the informed traveler's guide . Stackpole Books, March 2004, ISBN 978-0-8117-2974-1 , p. 185.
  3. The National cyclopaedia of American biography . JT White, 1896, p. 456 (Retrieved August 18, 2010).
  4. Ross MacTaggart: Millionaires, mansions, and motor yachts: an era of opulence . WW Norton & Company , November 8, 2004, ISBN 978-0-393-05762-1 , p. 100 (Retrieved August 18, 2010).
  5. a b c Biographic Highlights . Alfred I. du Pont Trust. P. 7. Archived from the original on May 21, 2011. Retrieved on August 18, 2010.
  6. ^ DuPont Company website: Heritage-Alfred I. du Pont
  7. a b MacTaggart (2004), p. 103
  8. MacTaggart (2004), pp. 103-105.
  9. ^ John K. Winkler: The Dupont Dynasty . Kessinger Publishing, May 4, 2005, ISBN 978-1-4191-2857-8 , pp. 177-178 (accessed on August 18, 2010).
  10. a b c d MacTaggart (2004), p. 105.
  11. DU PONT CO. WINS IN $ 60,000,000 SUIT; Judge Thompson Files Decree in US Court Dismissing Bill of Complaint. UPHOLDS STOCKHOLDERS Counsel for Defendants Says Contest Is Ended in Lower Court, but Predicts Appeal. Business is reorganized. . In: New York Times , March 21, 1918. Retrieved August 18, 2010. 
  12. a b c Jessie Ball du Pont papers. History Associates Incorporated (PDF, 667 kB) ( Memento from October 31, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  13. Gerard Colby : Du Pont Dynasty . L. Stuart, September 1984, ISBN 978-0-8184-0352-1 , p. 527 (accessed August 18, 2010).
  14. Florida State University: Coastal Laboratory Tidings-Spring, 2000 ( Memento of October 27, 2000 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ^ Alfred I. du Pont Dies in Florida; End Comes Suddenly to the Founder and Former Head of Explosives Company. , New York Times . April 29, 1935. Retrieved July 21, 2007. 
  16. ^ University of Florida Smathers Libraries: Special and Area Studies Collections-Edward Ball Papers
  17. ^ Alfred du Pont Trust: Financial History ( Memento of May 18, 2006 in the Internet Archive )

Web links