Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours ( , ; 14 December 1739 – 7 August 1817) was a French-American writer, economist, publisher and government official. During the French Revolution, he, his two sons and their families migrated to the United States.
His son Éleuthère Irénée du Pont was the founder of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. He was the patriarch and progenitor of one of the United States's most successful and wealthiest business dynasties of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Early life and family
thumb|Nicole-Charlotte Marie-Louise le Dée de Rencourt
Pierre du Pont was born on 14 December 1739, the son of Samuel du Pont and Anne Alexandrine de Montchanin. His father was a watchmaker and French Protestant, or Huguenot. His mother was a descendant of an impoverished minor noble family from Burgundy.
Du Pont married Nicole-Charlotte Marie-Louise le Dée de Rencourt in 1766, also of a minor noble family. They had three sons: Victor Marie (1767–1827), a manufacturer and politician; Paul François (December 1769–January 1770); and Éleuthère Irénée (1771–1834), the founder of E.I. duPont de Nemours and Company in the United States. Nicole-Charlotte died 3 September 1784 of typhoid.
Ancien Régime
With a lively intelligence and high ambition, Pierre became estranged from his father, who wanted him to be a watchmaker. The younger man developed a wide range of acquaintances with access to the French court during the period. Eventually he became the protégé of Dr. François Quesnay, the personal physician of King Louis XV's mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Quesnay was the leader of a faction known as the , a group of liberals at the court dedicated to economic and agricultural reforms. By the early 1760s, du Pont's writings on the national economy had drawn the attention of intellectuals such as Voltaire and Turgot. His 1768 book on physiocracy () advocated low tariffs and free trade among nations, deeply influenced Adam Smith of Scotland.
In 1768, he took over from Nicolas Baudeau, editor of ; he published in volume 6.
He was invited in 1774 by King Stanisław August Poniatowski (Stanislaus II Augustus) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to help organize that country's educational system.
Du Pont engaged in informal diplomacy between the United States and France during the reign of Napoleon. He was the originator of an idea that eventually became the Louisiana Purchase, as a way to avoid French troops landing in New Orleans, and possibly sparking armed conflict with U.S. forces. Eventually, he settled in the U.S. permanently; he died there in 1817.
His son Éleuthère, who had studied chemistry in France with Antoine Lavoisier, founded a gunpowder manufacturing plant, based on his experience in France as a chemist. It became one of the largest and most successful American corporations, known today as DuPont.
In 1800, he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
See also
- Du Pont family for other family members and relationships
- Commission of National Education
References
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Further reading
External links
- DuPont Company DuPont Heritage
- Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours papers at Hagley Museum and Library