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The Mills of Liberty: Foreign Capital, Government Contracts, and the Establishment of DuPont, 1790–1820

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2017

ANDREW J. B. FAGAL
ANDREW J. B. FAGAL*
Affiliation:
Andrew J. B. Fagal is an assistant editor for the Papers of Thomas Jefferson at Princeton University. He is currently working on a book on the political economy of war in the early republic.
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Abstract

E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. is one of the world’s largest chemical corporations, and its operations are of interest to business historians. This article explores the early history of the firm within the context of early republic political economy in order to show how it came to a place of prominence in the American gunpowder market by the early 1820s. The article utilizes the archival and printed records of DuPont, associated firms, government correspondence, and early War Department and trade statistics to show how the company, unlike other powder mills of that time, had access to both large reserves of foreign capital and the halls of power in the federal government. These resources helped DuPont become a principal supplier of gunpowder to the army, the navy, and a major exporter during the War of 1812 era.

Type
Article
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 309 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2017. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved. 

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References

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