Jump to content

Du Pont family

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Handicapper (talk | contribs) at 07:14, 5 July 2010 (→‎Alphabetical list of selected descendants of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours: Jane du Pont Lunger). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Du Pont
Current regionDelaware and New York, United States
Etymology"Of the bridge"
Place of originFrance
MembersEleuthère Irénée Du Pont De Nemours, Samuel Francis Du Pont
Connected familiesRoosevelt family Rothschild Family Vanderbilt family

The du Pont family is an American family descended from Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817). The son of a Paris watchmaker and a member of a Burgundian noble family, he and his sons, Victor Marie du Pont and Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, emigrated to the United States in 1800 and used the resources of their Huguenot heritage to found one of the most prominent of American families, and one of its most successful corporations, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, initially established by Eleuthère Irénée as a gunpowder manufacturer. Various members of the family managed the company well into the twentieth century and to this day constitute a substantial portion of the company's ownership. This and other companies run by the du Pont family employ some five to ten percent of Delaware's population. The family also played a very large part in politics during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and were at fault for the idea of the Louisiana purchase. They were one of the most respected and wealthiest families during the French Revolution.[citation needed] During the 19th century, the Du Pont family maintained their family wealth by carefully arranged marriages between first cousins[1] which, at the time, was the norm for many rich families.

Spelling of the name

The correct spelling of the Du Pont family name is du Pont when quoting an individual's full name and Du Pont when speaking of the family as a whole; some individual Du Ponts have chosen to spell it differently, perhaps most notably Samuel Francis Du Pont. However, the name of the chemical company founded by the family is correctly spelled DuPont, or, in the long form, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. Other members spelled it as duPont, notably the renowned Thoroughbred racehorse owners William duPont, Jr. and his sister, Marion duPont Scott. [1]

Listed below is an alphabetical listing of selected notable members of the family. It is followed by a listing of their families in order of descent. The listing is intended only to illustrate the relationships among the notable members of the family and is not a complete genealogy. The only family groupings and lines of descent shown are those necessary to illustrate relationships for notable members of the family. By 1942 there were believed to be 705 direct descendants of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours and there are now well over 2000 living members of the family.

Alphabetical list of selected descendants of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours

See also

References

  1. ^ Go Ahead, Kiss Your Cousin by Richard Conniff, From the August 2003 issue, published online August 1, 2003
  • Gates, John D. (1979). The du Pont Family. New York: Doubleday & Company. ISBN 0-385-13043-0.
  • Duke, Marc. (1976). The du Ponts, Portrait of a Dynasty. New York: Saturday Review Press, E.P. Dutton & Co. ISBN 0-8415-0429-6.
  • Dutton, William S. (1942). Du Pont, One Hundred and Forty Years. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
  • du Pont, Pierre S. (1942). Genealogy of the Du Pont Family 1739-1942. Wilmington: Hambleton Printing & Publishing.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Du_Pont_family&oldid=371809620"