Mary Duke Biddle
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Mary Duke Biddle (November 16, 1887-June 14, 1960), née Mary Lillian Duke [1], was an American philanthropist, the daughter of Benjamin Newton Duke, a co-founder with his brother of the American Tobacco Company, and Sarah Pearson Angier Duke. Born in Durham, North Carolina, Biddle went on to attend Durham's Trinity College, the institutional predecessor of Duke University, which was named in honor of her family. She graduated in 1907 with a degree in English.
She was a great enthusiast for the arts and travelled frequently with her family to New York City for the theatre and opera, later becoming an accomplished singer and musican.[2]
In 1918 she was given her father's brick-and-limestone Beaux-Arts townhouse on Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, built in 1901;[3] it is one of only nine surviving mansions on Fifth Avenue.
Her marriage to Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Jr. in 1915 ended in divorce in 1931. She and her husband owned an estate, "Linden Court", in Tarrytown, New York, bought from the William R. Harris family in 1921. It still stands today as The Tarrytown House Estate and Conference Center.[4] [5]
She established the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation in 1956. Since then the Foundation has donated more than $28 million in grants to non-profit organizations.
[edit] Notes
- ^ "A Washington Duke genealogy as it pertains to Duke University" - Duke University Libraries
- ^ "North Carolina School of the Arts Receives $100,000 Grant from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation to Endow Opera Scholarship" - Press release, February 4, 2002.
- ^ The house was one of a group of four built by the speculative builders William and Thomas Hall to designs by Alexander McMillan Welch of Welch, Smith and Provot; 1009 Fifth Avenue was purchased by Mr Biddle. It was granted landmark status in 1974, and was sold in 2005 by Mrs Biddle's daughter, Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans; the purchaser was Tamir Sapir.
- ^ Tarrytown House property history
- ^ "History Center at Dolce Tarrytown House", Half Moon Press newspaper, November, 2003 issue
