This episode of Decisions at the Fulcrum starts with the Brandywine River, instead of inventiveness, innovation, or even chemical synthesis. This is an account of how a few generations of refugees taught in European scientific disciplines morphed into an institution much bigger than a company. Instead, this institution gradually became a kind of infrastructure the United States grew to rely on, from the War of 1812 through the First World War due to timing, partnerships, regimen, and the predisposition of an emerging nation that was also unprepared to exert control over its own threats.

Following DuPont's development from gunpowder manufacturer to biochemical organization, this episode explores why nineteenth-century science, grounded in the criteria of reliability, rather than inventiveness, was the primary fulcrum point. Gunpowder was infrastructure in 1802, not an item of goods. Political, tumultuous, and heavy, it revealed the operational vulnerability of American independence. DuPont was the only arrangement that met all of the demands simultaneously but not the most suitable one, as imports failed, domestic producers were insufficient, and government control was still ideologically untenable. When an arrangement solved a shortcoming, despite the fact it was not flawless, the state continued to construct it on that answer. This was not inevitable; rather, it was dependency on the path.

This episode, which speaks directly to a Wilmington audience, contends that DuPont was not a chemistry legend in its entirety by the time of World War I. This recounted a story of how private organizations balance public susceptibility while staying entirely insoluble, and how modern institutions absorb responsibility without absorbing visibility. DuPont's history, from the Brandywine to a world conflict, is not filled with surging patriotism or heroic entrepreneurship, but rather the careful, reliable establishment of stability in an environment that was increasingly realizing how vulnerable it is. Part One of a longer analysis of how empires are subtly constructed on risky theories is presented herein.

A note:

This episode discusses topics that could be close and unsettled for many people. This work isn’t meant as an allusion to events in the present (i.e., the time you listen to it), though the information could be examined in that way. Nothing in this episode is meant to sensationalize harms, minimize dangers, or draw parallels across time. It’s an attempt to understand how societies organize and how decisions persist long after the moment that produced them.