About this collection

The External Affairs Department was responsible for all company advertising, publicity, and public affairs for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont Company. The department was created on January 1, 1986, by the merger of the Marketing Communications and Public Affairs departments. However, the department's roots goes back to 1911, when the Advertising Division of the Sales Department was created.

The DuPont Company External Affairs Department photographs (Accession 2004.268) collection consists of departmental photograph reference files covering a wide array of the company's activities. It is a comprehensive resource for images showing manufacturing processes, DuPont Company industrial plants and office buildings, aerials and exteriors, employee group and individual executive portraits, and product shots. The bulk of the images date from the 1940s through the 1990s. Only a small portion of the collection has been digitized.

Image: Entertainer Jimmy Durante and model promoting Cellophane, 1937. Click here to view this item in the collection.