General view of several employees at work on the automatic loading line for the production of detonators and initiators at the Hercules Powder Company plant in Port Ewen, New York. On the left-hand side of the photograph, employees situated in front of a concrete barricade are seen using levers to operate press machines, concealed behind the barricade, to fill shells with an explosive charge.

Formed in 1912 as part of an anti-trust settlement with DuPont, the Hercules Powder Company (later Hercules Inc.) specialized in the manufacture of explosives and smokeless powders. The company's Port Ewen plant produced a range of special detonators designed for military use, as well as construction jobs that required blasts of dynamite, such as the clearing of quarries, mines, and tunnels.