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Overview

DuPont purchased Harrison Brothers & Company for $5.7 million in March 1917 to boost its effort to diversify into the paint business. DuPont's acquisition of the Arlington Company two years earlier had added some enamels and lacquers to its product line, but Arlington's major asset was its pyroxylin plastic products. DuPont's Executive Committee also wished to expand more broadly into the paint and finishes business. Harrison Brothers & Company, founded near Philadelphia in 1793, was the first of several acquisitions DuPont made in 1917 and 1918 to achieve that goal. Early in the 19th century the Harrisons had diversified into heavy chemicals such as sulfuric, nitric and hydrochloric acids, but the company was best known for its trade paint business. After World War I the production and sales assets of Harrison Brothers & Company formed the nucleus of DuPont's Paint Department, which later became the Fabrics and Finishes Department. The former Harrison firm's experienced paint retail operations offered DuPont an established platform for selling its new paint products, including the revolutionary fast-drying Duco enamels the company introduced in 1924.

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