The Chemical Revolution

Lavoisier's American legacy

Pierre-Samuel du Pont was a close friend of Antoine Lavoisier. The two first met when Lavoisier was collecting taxes at the Ferme Générale and du Pont was gaining a reputation as a political writer and economist. Du Pont was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1789 as a delegate from the third estate of Nemours. During the French Revolution, du Pont, who supported a constitutional monarchy, volunteered to help guard Louis XVI when a mob attacked the palace in 1792. Eventually arrested, du Pont was spared death at the guillotine because of the fall of Maximilien Robespierre, the architect of the Reign of Terror. Du Pont sought a new life in the United States in 1799, because there, "persecuted men can find safety . . . [and] fortunes can be rebuilt." Having learned the newest methods of gunpowder manufacturing from Lavoisier, du Pont's son Eleuthère Irénée opened a powder works near Wilmington, Delaware, in 1802. He wanted to call the business Lavoisier Mills, to show his "gratitude to the person whose kindness toward me was the primary cause of my undertaking." His father, however, had other ideas, and it was organized under the name "du Pont de Nemours and Company."

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The chemical heritage of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier | Combustion and the attack on phlogiston
A new chemistry emerges | Lavoisier's American legacy
The life of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) | Landmark designation