General view of employee Kenneth Newell operating a press machine used to fill electric blasting caps with an explosive charge at the Hercules Powder Company plant in Port Ewen, New York. The operation was remote-controlled and, per notations accompanying the photograph, the machine typically operated behind a concrete barricade, which is open here for the purposes of the photograph.

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.