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he du Pont family is an American family descended from Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739–1817). The son of a Paris watchmaker and a member of a Burgundian noble family, he and his sons, Victor Marie du Pont and Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, emigrated to the United States in 1800 and used the resources of their Huguenot heritage to found one of the most prominent of American families, and one of its most successful corporations, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, initially established by Eleuthère Irénée as a gunpowder manufacturer. Various members of the family managed the company well into the twentieth century and to this day constitute a substantial portion of the company's ownership. This and other companies run by the du Pont family employ some five to ten percent of Delaware's population. The family also played a very large part in politics during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and were responsible for the idea of the Louisiana purchase. They were one of the most respected and wealthiest families during the French Revolution.[citation needed] During the 19th century, the Du Pont family maintained their family wealth by carefully arranged marriages between first cousins[1] which, at the time, was the norm for many rich families.