Pierre S. DuPont was born near Wilmington, Delaware in 1870. Twenty years later, he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a chemistry degree and began working in the DuPont family business. He became an assistant superintendent at Brandywine Mills, and two years later, Pierre and his cousin Francis G. DuPont developed and patented the first American-made smokeless gunpowder at the Carney's Point plant in New Jersey. During the 1890's, Pierre worked at the Johnson Company, which was a steel firm partly owned by the DuPont family. Here he learned a great deal about cost accounting and financial management from the company's president, Arthur Moxham.…
