Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours (/djuːˈpɒnt, ˈdjuːpɒnt/; French: [dypɔ̃]; 24 June 1771 – 31 October 1834) 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 the richest and most prominent American families since the 19th century, with generations of influential businessmen, politicians and philanthropists. In 1807, du Pont was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in his adopted hometown of Philadelphia.

Career

Eleuthère (right) and his mentor, Antoine Lavoisier
In 1791, du Pont began to help his father manage their small publishing house in Paris, where they published a republican newspaper in support of governmental reforms in France. Du Pont was a member of the pro-Revolution national guard and supported the Jacobins. However, on 20 August 1792, both du Pont and his father participated in protecting the escape of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette when the Tuileries Palace was stormed. His father angered fellow revolutionaries by refusing to go along with the guillotine execution of Louis XVI, and the two men's moderate political views proved to be a liability in revolutionary France.

His father was arrested in 1794, only avoiding execution because of the end of the Reign of Terror. In September 1797, du Pont and his father spent a night in La Force prison while their home and presses were ransacked. These events led his father to lose hope in the political situation in France, and so he began making plans to move their family to America and aspired to create a model community of French émigrés. On 2 October 1799, the du Pont family sold their publishing house and set sail for the United States. They reached Rhode Island on 1 January 1800 and began to settle in the home the eldest du Pont had secured in Bergen Point, New Jersey.

They soon set up an office in New York City to decide what their new line of business would be, but Éleuthère Irénée was not included in much of these plans. However, he saw the possibilities that his earlier apprenticeship with Lavoisier would allow him and his family in America.