Sallie Bingham
The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke
“Men who inherit great wealth are respected, but women who do the same are ridiculed. In The Silver Swan, Sallie Bingham rescues Doris Duke from this gendered prison and shows us just how brave, rebellious, and creative this unique woman really was, and how her generosity benefits us to this day.”— Gloria Steinem
“In her fascinating book about tobacco heiress Doris Duke, whose net worth had ballooned to $1.2 billion by her death in 1993, Bingham gets at how inherited wealth liberates women but also burdens them.”— The National Book Review, "5 HOT BOOKS"
“In this illuminating biography, Bingham (The Blue Box) chronicles the life of philanthropist and tobacco heiress Doris Duke (1912–1993)... Bingham is a generous biographer in this exacting, measured work.”— Publishers Weekly
“Bingham adds a trove of new material to the Duke oeuvre, including revealing quotations from letters and details of daily life on Duke’s many estates. ”— The New York Times
Prefer text? Read the transcript.
Sallie Bingham is a writer, teacher, feminist activist, and philanthropist.
Sallie’s first novel was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1961; she has since published six additional novels and the well-known family memoir, Passion and Prejudice (Knopf, 1989). Her latest book, The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke, is now available from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
She is founder of the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which published The American Voice, and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture at Duke University.
Sallie's Latest
Change of Pace: My Master’s Horse
I'm going to treat you—and it will be a treat—to bits and pieces of what I really want to write....
How Libels Take Hold
Hearsay, sometimes passed down for three hundred years, sticks—especially if it is negative, and especially if it adheres to a woman....
Power Corrupts
Are women somehow exempt from the deleterious influence of power? We have so seldom exercised visible power in the past that the question hasn't been asked....
How Creative We Are!
Amazing to see the way friends and strangers here in Santa Fe do more than "adapt" to the virus—they make hay out of it....
Clearing Out
As I put my files, copies of the originals at Duke, into boxes for the shredder, I glance at a few that came as such pleasant surprises when I first found them eight or nine years ago....
The Female Economy
It is important for the 9% of U.S. women who belong to what the Harvard study calls Elite/Independent to step up to leadership roles....
A Queen Exiled at Home
If we treat ourselves as the queens we are, the example of Liliʻuokalani may inspire us....
Heroes in Breeches
I didn't think the horseback-riding British midwives I worked for years ago in the Kentucky mountains were heroes....
Treason on Stage
It was Ezra Pound's personal story of committing treason against the U.S. during World War Two and his even longer-lasting treason against the three women who loved him that drove me to writing this play....
Being Needed Doesn’t Mean Being Well Paid
I was raised by one of the millions of women who then as well as now fill the most essential U.S. jobs....
The Silver Swan
Clearing Out
As I put my files, copies of the originals at Duke, into boxes for the shredder, I glance at a few that came as such pleasant surprises when I first found them eight or nine years ago....
The Delights of Research
There is nothing like opening a file box, with some unknown's penciled label at the top, and diving into an absolutely unpredictable collection of letters, notes, interviews—anything Doris Duke, in my case, decided to save....
“The Swan” Launches!
I am so grateful to all my readers and potential readers and I look forward to being in touch with each and every one of you....
Doris Duke is Born
What do I hope my biography will accomplish? Nothing less than a complete reconsideration of Doris Duke....
What Was Cut
I suppose it’s a stretch—but then what is the point of writing without stretching?—but I think if Doris Duke had known about Julian Abele’s work, she would have admired him and regretted that during his life time, he was never given his due....
The Next Step
How to live on nothing is a question the publishers have not condescended to consider....
Celebrities
These days if a writer is smitten with the idea of writing a new book—a new analysis—of any supposedly well-known person, the obstacles to her research will be enormous....
Death of Ten Thousand Pricks
Scheduled to be published in August, 2018, The Silver Swan is now delayed till sometime in 2019....
Doris Duke
A Queen Exiled at Home
If we treat ourselves as the queens we are, the example of Liliʻuokalani may inspire us....
The Delights of Research
There is nothing like opening a file box, with some unknown's penciled label at the top, and diving into an absolutely unpredictable collection of letters, notes, interviews—anything Doris Duke, in my case, decided to save....
Doris Duke is Born
What do I hope my biography will accomplish? Nothing less than a complete reconsideration of Doris Duke....
What Was Cut
I suppose it’s a stretch—but then what is the point of writing without stretching?—but I think if Doris Duke had known about Julian Abele’s work, she would have admired him and regretted that during his life time, he was never given his due....
Legacy of Harm
Doris Duke must at least have wondered if her generosity, in all its forms, could ever compensate for the destructive effects of nicotine addiction. ...
Caught in the Act
One of the most notable differences between women and men in public life is we seem to know better how to avoid scandal....
To Be of Use: The Lisa Unger Baskin Collection
A great collection is always based on a passion. It is not random. It grows from a strong root....
Death of Ten Thousand Pricks
Scheduled to be published in August, 2018, The Silver Swan is now delayed till sometime in 2019....
Writing
Change of Pace: My Master’s Horse
I'm going to treat you—and it will be a treat—to bits and pieces of what I really want to write....
Clearing Out
As I put my files, copies of the originals at Duke, into boxes for the shredder, I glance at a few that came as such pleasant surprises when I first found them eight or nine years ago....
Treason on Stage
It was Ezra Pound's personal story of committing treason against the U.S. during World War Two and his even longer-lasting treason against the three women who loved him that drove me to writing this play....
Next Comes
I like to write about risk... and risk, by its very nature, seems best suited to shorter forms....
The Delights of Research
There is nothing like opening a file box, with some unknown's penciled label at the top, and diving into an absolutely unpredictable collection of letters, notes, interviews—anything Doris Duke, in my case, decided to save....
“The Swan” Launches!
I am so grateful to all my readers and potential readers and I look forward to being in touch with each and every one of you....
Zoom the Miracle and a Few Others
I've always been comfortable with what I think is my healthy dose of vanity. Don't we all need it to enjoy our blessings?...
Doris Duke is Born
What do I hope my biography will accomplish? Nothing less than a complete reconsideration of Doris Duke....
What Was Cut
I suppose it’s a stretch—but then what is the point of writing without stretching?—but I think if Doris Duke had known about Julian Abele’s work, she would have admired him and regretted that during his life time, he was never given his due....
Women
How Libels Take Hold
Hearsay, sometimes passed down for three hundred years, sticks—especially if it is negative, and especially if it adheres to a woman....
Power Corrupts
Are women somehow exempt from the deleterious influence of power? We have so seldom exercised visible power in the past that the question hasn't been asked....
The Female Economy
It is important for the 9% of U.S. women who belong to what the Harvard study calls Elite/Independent to step up to leadership roles....
A Queen Exiled at Home
If we treat ourselves as the queens we are, the example of Liliʻuokalani may inspire us....
Being Needed Doesn’t Mean Being Well Paid
I was raised by one of the millions of women who then as well as now fill the most essential U.S. jobs....
In A Dark Time
How ironic and, yet, how strangely fitting, that this flying virus arrives at the middle of Women's History month and just before the April 7 publication of The Silver Swan......
Votes for Women
In the middle of all the horrors in the U.S. Capitol, we need to remember that much more significant events are happening....
Firebrand in the Trojan Horse Part Two
Sometimes the Trojan Horse is actually a country or some part of a country in the grip of intolerance....
Firebrand in the Trojan Horse and the Half Step Strategy
I've had the singular good fortune to meet this past week a most remarkable young woman, Mara Zepeda....
New Mexican Women Claimed the Right to Vote Almost One Hundred Years Ago
We are at a curious moment today, in terms of suffrage and of women's rights generally....
New Mexico
How Creative We Are!
Amazing to see the way friends and strangers here in Santa Fe do more than "adapt" to the virus—they make hay out of it....
The Good News
We're learning—in small towns, in countries, in continents—the lessons we desperately need if we are going to survive... not only this crisis, but the far greater looming crisis of global climate disruption....
That Sweet Little Breeze
For all of us who have bad moments in the dark of night, try opening a bedroom window......
Part Time Dancer
I'm so carried away when I dance that I sing along with the music and hardly know or care where I'm putting my flying feet....
The Wild West
For Taos, a small town in the Rocky Mountains near Santa Fe, another snow means first of all figuring how to move around... but there are other stories....
Votes for Women
In the middle of all the horrors in the U.S. Capitol, we need to remember that much more significant events are happening....
It Takes a Village..
Since I've never lived in a village, this statement, made by Hilary Clinton a while ago, never had much meaning for me until a now....
Firebrand in the Trojan Horse and the Half Step Strategy
I've had the singular good fortune to meet this past week a most remarkable young woman, Mara Zepeda....
Dancing for the New Year
I'll be dancing in the New Year—out with the old, in with the new, and hope springing eternal....
The Indignities of Age
I think I'd rather fall down in the street, which would be easy to do today in snowy, icy Santa Fe—at its most beautiful, and, like everything beautiful, somewhat treacherous....
Kentucky
Heroes in Breeches
I didn't think the horseback-riding British midwives I worked for years ago in the Kentucky mountains were heroes....
In A Dark Time
How ironic and, yet, how strangely fitting, that this flying virus arrives at the middle of Women's History month and just before the April 7 publication of The Silver Swan......
Sometimes It Takes a While
Several decades ago, I became aware of the work and life of Enid Yandell, a Kentucky-born, Paris educated sculptor whose statues I used to see at various ceremonial points in Louisville. This early twentieth-century woman artist, although acclaimed in her time, seemed to be forgotten. Yandell was one of a group of talented women artists ...
18 Favorites of 2018
I've once again chosen my most popular posts of 2018, based on visits, comments, Tweets and Facebook likes....
Teaching Girls
A small school in a southern city where girls were usually curbed physically or mentally, the Louisville Collegiate School for Girls and its teachers did not deal in... limits. My years there started me on my way as a writer....
My Mother’s Cookbook
I did make some progress... although probably my greatest accomplishment was mayonnaise made in a blender....
Spring Planting
The Horsetooth Corn will grow vigorously to remind us all that fertility, growth and abundance is still possible....
My Family
How Libels Take Hold
Hearsay, sometimes passed down for three hundred years, sticks—especially if it is negative, and especially if it adheres to a woman....
Dancing for the New Year
I'll be dancing in the New Year—out with the old, in with the new, and hope springing eternal....
And It Does Go On
I am devoutly grateful for the lives of Will's two older brothers who have mourned him with me and yet managed to go on....
The Secret Bunker
A big resort in the mountains of West Virginia, called The Greenbrier, figured often in my great-grandmother Sallie's tales of her girlhood in Richmond....
18 Favorites of 2018
I've once again chosen my most popular posts of 2018, based on visits, comments, Tweets and Facebook likes....
The Mustard Seed
As a child, I planted seeds every spring and knew how likely it was that, when I forgot to water them, they would never spring from the dry earth....
My Mother’s Cookbook
I did make some progress... although probably my greatest accomplishment was mayonnaise made in a blender....
Apples
Like the medieval desert mendicants, holy men who lived their lives in remote caves and were sometimes fed by ravens, Will had long ago lost any interest in possessions, or any taste for food....
