Early Years
Du Pont was born in the Brandywine Valley region of Delaware to which his great-great-grandfather Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours had emigrated with his sons after the French Revolution. The son of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, II, a partner in the DuPont family gunpowder business, and Charlotte Shepard Henderson, he had two older sisters and two younger brothers. When du Pont was 13, his mother, who had a history of mental illness, was committed to an asylum following an episode of hysteria. Within a week, she died. The du Pont children were orphaned a month later when Eleuthère Irénée du Pont followed, a victim of tuberculosis.
Du Pont's family intended to separate the children and sell their family home, Swamp Hall, but were persuaded otherwise by the fierce resistance of the children. The girls remained in the home, but du Pont was sent to boarding school: first, to the religious Shinn Academy in New Jersey and then, two years later, Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts. After graduation, he enrolled in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, rooming with his cousin Coleman du Pont.
Read more about this topic: Alfred I. Du Pont
Famous quotes related to early years:
“I believe that if we are to survive as a planet, we must teach this next generation to handle their own conflicts assertively and nonviolently. If in their early years our children learn to listen to all sides of the story, use their heads and then their mouths, and come up with a plan and share, then, when they become our leaders, and some of them will, they will have the tools to handle global problems and conflict.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)