Occupation Tobacco Name Benjamin Duke | Role Industrialist Siblings James Buchanan Duke | |
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Born April 25, 1855 ( 1855-04-25 ) Durham, North Carolina Relatives James Buchanan Duke, brother Died January 8, 1929, New York City, New York, United States Spouse Sarah Pearson Angier Duke (m. 1875–1929) Children Angier Buchanan Duke, Mary Duke Biddle Parents Washington Duke, Artelia Roney Duke Similar People Washington Duke, James Buchanan Duke, Mary Duke Biddle Trent Se, Mary Duke Biddle, Angier Biddle Duke | ||
1009 Fifth Ave, James Remembers
Benjamin Newton Duke (April 25, 1855 – January 8, 1929) was an American tobacco, textile and energy industrialist and philanthropist.
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Life and career
He was the son of industrialist Washington Duke and half-brother to Brodie Leonidas Duke (1846–1919), as well as being the full brother of James Buchanan Duke (1856–1925).
On February 21, 1875, Benjamin Duke married Sarah Pearson Angier, with whom he had a daughter, Mary Lillian Duke, and a son, Angier Buchanan Duke. Portraits of all four members of the family were commissioned from the Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla in 1911.
He entered his father's tobacco business, and in 1890 became vice-president of the American Tobacco Company. In 1892, the Duke family opened their first textile business in Durham, North Carolina, with Benjamin Duke at its head.
In 1905, he and his brother James founded the Southern Power Company, which later became known as Duke Energy. The company initially supplied electrical power to the Duke textile factory. Within two decades, their power facilities had been greatly expanded, and they were supplying electricity to more than 300 cotton mills and other industrial companies through an electrical grid that supplied cities and towns in the Piedmont Region of North and South Carolina.
Benjamin Duke and his brother were major contributors to the economic growth of the North Carolina economy and would expand into other areas with sizable investments in railroads and banks.
Benjamin was a primary benefactor of Trinity College after it relocated to Durham in 1892. Over the years, he donated substantial funds for improvements, additions, and scholarships. Between 1926 and 1929, he donated approximately $3,000,000 (more than $30,000,000 in 2005 dollars) to twenty-seven different southern institutions of higher learning. Today, Duke University offers the B. N. Duke Scholars program.
Following his death at his home in New York City in 1929, Benjamin Duke's remains were brought back to North Carolina for interment with his father and brother James in Memorial Chapel in the Duke University Chapel on the campus of Duke University.