By Carol Hoffecker Richards Professor of History

In January 1800, following a wearying voyage across the Atlantic, Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours and his sons, Victor Marie and Eleuthère Irénée, with their wives and children, disembarked in Newport, R.I. Within two years, the family moved to northern Delaware, where Eleuthère Irénée established the black powder manufactory that has become the global, scientifically-based DuPont Corp. of today. In the year 2000, descendants of those voyagers, now several thousand in number, celebrated the 200th anniversary of their ancestors' arrival in the United States. Alumni and students of the University of Delaware had special reason to salute the du Ponts on this occasion not only for their business enterprise, but for the philanthropy of numerous family members whose contributions and vision have helped to shape the development of our University.

Education has been a du Pont family priority for a very long time. It lay at the heart of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemour's aspirations for his family and for the advancement of mankind. The family patriarch was a significant figure in the French Enlightenment. Thomas Jefferson, who had met and admired du Pont de Nemours in France, turned to him for advice about establishing public education in the United States. Shortly after he arrived in America, du Pont responded with a treatise entitled National Education In America in which he proposed that the American government create a national university in Washington, D.C., to be a "palace of science" and a model of free enquiry. The institution would, he wrote, increase "knowledge by giving it a worthy home." Although du Pont's proposal for a national university was never realized, the desire to give education based on free enquiry "a worthy home" was to become an important motivation within the du Pont family, most especially to be realized at the University of Delaware.

The first member of the family to establish ties with the University was Charles I. du Pont, a son of Victor Marie and grandson of Pierre Samuel, who joined the Board of Trustees of Delaware College in 1838, five years after the institution's founding. He served until his death in 1869. Charles I. du Pont's two sons, Victor and Charles I. Jr., attended the institution in the 1840s. The college that they knew, focused around the building on the Newark campus now called Old College, changed little through the 19th century. Small, all-male (except for a period of coeducation from 1872-1885) and under-funded, the college struggled to fulfill its mission with increasingly antiquated and inadequate facilities and a teaching staff too small for the growing number of Delaware youth who wished to attend. In 1912, in a desperate hope of securing outside funding, Delaware College President George A. Harter appealed unsuccessfully to Pierre S. du Pont, then treasurer of the DuPont Co., for help. But, where Harter's direct approach initially failed to gain du Pont's support for the college, no more than a year later, solicitation from another quarter succeeded.

Hugh Rodney Sharp of Lewes, Del., graduated in 1900 from Delaware College. After a brief stint teaching school in Odessa, Del., he joined the treasurer's department of the DuPont Co. in 1903. There, Sharp met Treasurer Pierre S. du Pont and, in 1908, he married du Pont's sister, Isabella. In 1913, Pierre S. du Pont chose Sharp to be his personal secretary. In that same year, two additional developments took place that were to have an important bearing on the future of the college in Newark. The state legislature funded a new college for women to be located less than a mile south of Delaware College and to be operated as a coordinate institution under the same board of trustees, and Sharp took on the responsibility for leading a fund-raising drive on behalf of Delaware College. Meanwhile, Pierre S. du Pont, although increasingly burdened with the affairs of the DuPont Co., had recognized the sad state of public education in Delaware and was exploring ways to address the problem. The time was ripe for Sharp to address his employer/brother-in-law on behalf of the college in Newark.

What followed was the creation of the modern University of Delaware. Pierre S. du Pont made a private agreement with Sharp that he would provide funding for development of the college if his contributions were kept anonymous and if his brother-in-law joined the college board of trustees to supervise the expenditure of his money. Sharp obliged and, together with the institution's new president, Samuel Chiles Mitchell, he worked with renowned collegiate architect Charles Z. Klauder and landscape architect Marian Coffin to fashion a new campus. Within a few years, the land separating the men's and women's campuses was purchased, a green was designed to link the two campuses, elm trees were planted along its axes and the first two buildings, Harter Hall and Wolf Hall, were constructed in brick colonial style reminiscent of the 18th century Delaware architecture that Sharp so admired. In 1921, the two single-sex institutions were united in name also, as the University of Delaware.

Hugh Rodney Sharp continued to lead the University's development along The Green through the 1920s. In the early years of the decade, he helped determine the architectural style of The Green's centerpiece, Memorial Hall,which was built as a library and became the first facility jointly shared by both men and women students. As the project's leading fun-raiser, he solicited major gifts from a number of du Pont family members for the new building. Several years later, Sharp offered to construct and outfit an auditorium capable of seating 1,000 people to be built on The Green near Memorial Hall. The result was Mitchell Hall, which, in the years that followed, fulfilled its donor's hope that the building might encourage student dramatics and musical programs. Sharp's most generous legacy to his alma mater was, however, yet to come. In 1946, following the death of his wife, Isabella, he assigned to the University the income from her trust fund for the remainder of his life. When Rodney Sharp died in 1968, that income had enlarged the University's endowment by more than $58 million.

Pierre S. du Pont also continued to fund projects that captured his interest at the University. In the 1920s, he was encouraged by his wife, Alice Belin du Pont, to realize the dream of a young professor of French, Raymond W. Kirkbride, to establish the first foreign study program at an American college or university. Pierre and Alice took a personal interest in the students and their professor. In 1923, on the eve of the departure of the first study group to France, the du Ponts met Kirkbride with his excited students in New York City and treated them to dinner and a Broadway show. For many years, Pierre du Pont also hosted outings for the University student body and faculty to shows at Wilmington's Playhouse Theatre.

The Carpenters are another du Pont-related family who have made major contributions to the University. Robert Ruliph Morgan Carpenter, a DuPont Co., executive, married Margaretta du Pont, a sister of Pierre and Isabella. In 1940, Carpenter joined the University Board of Trustees and began a tradition, as yet unbroken, of his family's service to the University that has focused on athletics. In the 1940s, Carpenter provided the funds for the gymnasium that bears his name. His son, R. R. M. Carpenter Jr., known to all as Bob, replaced his father on the Board in 1945. Bob Carpenter was dedicated to developing the University's athletic programs, especially football, with the goal of giving young men the opportunity to attend college as scholar-athletes. In 1990, when Bob Carpenter died, the torch passed to his son, Ruly Carpenter, who led the campaign for the construction of the Bob Carpenter Center, a $20 million facility that pays tribute to the man described as the Father of Delaware Intercollegiate Athletics.

Perhaps the most unexpected du Pont to contribute substantially to the University was Amy (1875-1962), a daughter of Eugene du Pont, a scientist and president of the DuPont Co., and his wife, Amelia, who was a descendant of the Victor Marie branch of the family. Amy du Pont did not attend college and never married. Her connection to the University centered on the Women's College, where she served on the advisory committee. Lacking heirs, Amy du Pont decided to leave the bulk of her inheritance to charitable purposes. In 1939, she created the Unidel Foundation "to aid and promote higher education in the state of Delaware, and to increase, enlarge and improve the scientific and educational advantages of its people by gifts and contributions to the University of Delaware." She directed that the foundation's gifts were to enhance University programs, but could not be used in place of funds for basic programs that should be provided by the state government.

The Unidel Foundation was established with its own board of trustees to administer its funds. In 1962, when Amy du Pont died, the corpus of Unidel's funds was valued at $25 million. Every year since that time, University administrators have presented proposals for the use of the foundation's income to the Unidel board. Among the most visible gifts from Unidel have been the Amy E. du Pont Music Building, built in 1973, and the Eugene du Pont scholarships, which have been key to the success of the University's highly regarded Honors Program. Unidel funds also have played a significant role in attracting and compensating high-quality faculty in a number of disciplines. In the years since Amy du Pont established her foundation, Unidel has provided nearly $80 million to enhance University of Delaware programs.

Personal interests have moved several members of the du Pont family to support the development of outstanding, even world-class, educational programs at Delaware. Perhaps the most visible member of this group was Henry Francis du Pont who, as a longtime member of the University's Board of Trustees, took a lively interest in the development of the campus landscape and helped fund research on cattle diseases. H. F. du Pont is best known, however, for his intense attachment to collecting and studying early American antiques. In 1952, just one year after du Pont had opened a museum at his home at Winterthur, the Winterthur Museum collaborated with the University's Departments of History, Art History and English, to create the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture, an innovative master's degree program that has achieved world renown in the education of museum professionals.

Two other highly regarded graduate programs, the Hagley Program in the history of industry and technology and the Longwood Graduate Program in Ornamental Horticulture, also have du Pont connections. The Hagley Program, which has educated two generations of some of America's most important historians of business and technology, was founded in 1954 as a joint venture of the University's Department of History with the Hagley Museum, site of the original DuPont Co. black powder mills. The Longwood Program, created in 1967, links Pierre S. du Pont's Longwood Gardens with the University's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Almost everywhere one looks at the University, du Pont family philanthropy has enhanced learning opportunities and has helped respectable programs to achieve excellence. Examples pop up in such unexpected places as the criminal justice major in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, which benefited from Jean Foulke (Mrs. E. Paul) du Pont's concerns on behalf of incarcerated youth; the anthropology department's collection of Indian artifacts, a gift of descendants of Lammot du Pont; and the geology department's superb Irénée du Pont mineral collection. Other du Pont gifts have included land, works of art, distinguished professorships, start-up costs for the University's unique art conservation Ph.D. program and the Goodstay property in Wilmington, Del. The University's Laird Campus was named to honor William Winder (Chick) Laird Jr., who donated the property on which the north campus stands. Hugh Rodney Sharp Jr., an avid sailor and fisherman, for whom the Lewes campus of the College of Marine Studies is named, was an early advocate, strong supporter and guiding hand in that college's development. Pearson Hall, now a University classroom building but originally Newark High School, was renamed in 1994 to honor Edith du Pont Riegal Pearson, a generous donor, and her husband, Judge George Burton Pearson Jr., a longtime member of the University's Board of Trustees and president of the Unidel Board.

The most recent University edifice to bear the du Pont name is appropriately a chemistry building, the Lammot du Pont Laboratory, completed in 1993 adjacent to Brown Laboratory. This state-of-the-art structure bears an inscription which reads "This Building Is Named In Honor of Lammot du Pont (1831-1884) who was a Pioneer In the Development of Chemical Technology. His Innovations Led to Standards of Excellence For the Chemical Industry Much in Evidence Today." Du Pont family members who contributed to the building campaign for this laboratory may have reflected on the fact that their wealth has come, not from the mineral deposits or transportation systems that enriched the Rockefellers, Mellons, Vanderbilts and Harrimans, but, rather, from discoveries made in laboratories such as this, by scientists who are trained in universities, such as the University of Delaware.

In 1800, du Pont de Nemours wrote in his treatise on national education that if his ideas were realized, "we shall have increased knowledge by giving it a worthy home." His descendants have done a remarkable job of fulfilling that legacy at the University of Delaware.