William HACarr: The du Pont

William HACarr
Ed. Dall'Oglio
pp. 420

"Rectitudine sto", this is the motto that is found under the du Pont family crest. 
Above instead a helmet and in the shield a pillar in the middle of a field.
I was not very clear who the du Pont were before reading their family history in the splendid biography of WHACarr. Of course, I had already heard of it but I was not able to associate their name with any historical, scientific, political or social event.
Perhaps (but I'm not sure!) It was a surname encountered in some comics or read on some commercial product; the only thing I was quite sure of was that it was a French surname, and in fact I was not wrong.

The book, published in the 1967, tells the story of seven generations of the du Pont: from the departure from France of the American founder, Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, immediately after the French revolution, to the 60 years of the twentieth century.

Pierre Samuel was born a watchmaker but soon managed to enter the group of encyclopedists, thanks to his essays on political economy. It is to him that we owe the term "physiocracy", which indicates the theory of political economy that believed that the products of the earth have greater importance than products of industry or commerce.
Pierre Samuel du Pont had to be smart, in a few years he became famous to the point that Franklin wished he could bring him to America.
We are at the end of the 1700. In France it is a time of revolutions and Pierre Samuel is close to the King of France.
It is in this period that the King, Louis XVI, grants him a license of nobility for his merits, thus his coat of arms is born. Since then the du Ponts subject their children to a special investiture, a brief ceremony in which they explain to young people that "There is no privilege that is not inseparably linked to a duty".
In the 1787 Pierre Samuel is a councilor of state and director of commerce and makes his first son, Victor, to be employed at the French legation in New York. The second son, Irénée, finds work at the national gunpowder factory, employed by Lavoisier.
The following years are marred by ups and downs, due to the vicissitudes of France, which passes through one of the darkest periods of its existence.
Pierre Samuel was imprisoned twice and the family printing press was ransacked. The time has come to leave France.

The 2 October 1799 the du Pont family, thirteen people in all, aboard the American Eagle set sail for America.
The du Pont landed in New Port the 1 January 1800. 
From there they immediately moved to New York, where they immediately began working on their project: setting up a business company that would allow them to become what they are today, one of the richest and most powerful families in America.
Already at that time the du Pont boasted knowledge at the highest level and were certainly not unprepared, yet their luck owes it to a case. One autumn day of the 1800, Colonel Louis de Tonsard, in the company of Irénée, was hunting in the Delaware territory. Once the ammunition is over, the two men stop at a country store to buy gunpowder. Irénée, given her work records, immediately realizes that French industrial products were much cheaper but above all of better quality. The family immediately got in motion to find the necessary financing to open a gunpowder factory and to find the necessary supports so that the products could be sold in American markets.
In July, 1802 Irénée's family moves into an ideal terrain for planting the factory, in Delaware, on the Brandiwine river ...

The book goes on to retrace the main American and world historical events in which the du Pont, the main producers of gunpowder, took part.
The du Ponts were always very close, even if there were disagreements and problems, and the personnel employed in the factories were considered part of the family. 
In the du Pont family there were chemists, engineers, politicians, soldiers, all of them somehow contributed to the growth of American society.
The most important project in which the du Pont participated was perhaps the Manhattan project, for which they accepted a symbolic reward of a dollar from the American state!

Today the du Pont family is still one of the richest in America, its products continue to be found everywhere.

Book to read in one go and think about. A book which, in addition to presenting the history of a large family, of France and America, pushes to reflect also on the profound meaning of the term "family".

Alessandro Rugolo