Pierre Samuel du Pont (January 15, 1870 – April 4, 1954) founded the Hagley Library (originally the Eleutherian Mills Library). Pierre and his brothers attended Phillips Academy and MIT, and Pierre graduated from MIT in 1890. During their time in school, the brothers documented the grounds, their friends, and their living spaces. Photographs of the dorm rooms show walls fully covered in mementos. Banners, framed and unframed photographs, flags, magazines, broadsides advertising sporting events, and newspaper pages were all used to adorn the spaces and showcase the brothers’ interests.
The photographs were shot on glass gelatin dry plate negatives. Dry plate technology arose in the 1870s, and cameras that used strips of flexible film were available by 1888, so it is interesting that whoever took these pictures did not use the latest photographic technology. At 4x5 inches, the negatives capture enough detail that some family portraits tacked to mantels and walls might be identified in the Hagley Digital Archives. The photographic mounts and the ways they were displayed first piqued my interest, but a more interesting detail emerged during a reverse image search.
Some of the prints on the wall were clearly political in nature. One, showing a row of portly, top-hat-wearing men, was identified as an illustration from Puck, a magazine of political and social satire (see below). Titled “The Bosses of the Senate,” it was published in January 1889. It depicts industrial interests, including the Copper, Steel, Iron, Oil, and Sugar Trusts, as physically overwhelming the space and the attention of the U.S. Congress, while the “People’s Entrance” remains closed. A commentary on the influence of monopolistic business strategies, the cartoon was published the year before the enactment of the Sherman Antitrust Act. It also foretells a significant event in Pierre Samuel du Pont’s working life.
P.S. served as president of DuPont from 1915 to 1919 and, at the same time, managed General Motors. By the 1940s, the DuPont Company controlled a large percentage of GM’s stock, leading to antitrust litigation. In 1957, several years after his death, the Supreme Court ordered the DuPont Company to distribute 3.5 billion dollars in GM stock to shareholders.
See all images documenting P.S. du Pont's time at Phillips Academy and MIT in the Hagley Digital Archive.
These images are part of the Longwood Photographs collection (accession 1969.002): Finding Aid | Digital Archive