Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Mary Lillian DUKE
Mary Lillian Duke Biddle (November 16, 1887 – June 14, 1960), was an American philanthropist.
She was the daughter of Benjamin Newton Duke, a co-founder with his brother of the American Tobacco Company, and Sarah Pearson Angier. 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 traveled frequently with her family to New York City for the theater and opera, later becoming an accomplished singer and musician.
In 1918 she was given her father's brick-and-limestone Beaux-Arts townhouse on Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, built in 1901; 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.
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.
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