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.
Treason: A Sallie Bingham Reader
This rich and accomplished collection showcases the range of a writer at the height of her powers. From the complex stories of artistic influence and the exhilaration and fright of solitude, to the incendiary rage of a betrayed young wife who sacrifices everything for revenge, to the struggles for independence of the three women who surrounded Ezra Pound like subservient stars, these fictions seize the reader’s attention while slashing stereotypes.
This Sallie Bingham Reader captures the spirit of the author’s illustrious writing career via short stories, a novella, and a play.
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
Why I Believe
I have no other way to accept—or begin to accept—the tragedies over four generations that have engulfed my birth family....
Flashing on the Sixties
I am not an unequivocal admirer of that period, those people, and all that they caused—or helped to cause—to happen, in the early 1960’s and continuing to this day....
Two Women: Margaret and Doris
I've come to believe over the years that there is a core similarity that connects the lives of all women. I think it is our ability to adapt....
Choice
No one in her right mind is "pro-abortion." I know from personal experience what a difficult decision this is. ...
My Grandmother Is Turning in Her Grave
My beloved grandmother could never have imagined that the enormous statue towering over her hometown would be pulled down, carved up and crated off to an uncertain future as it was a week ago....
Black Canyon
One of the many blessings of my life is the trail system in Hyde Park which starts about ten miles north of my house. ...
The Mother of All Bombs
I have trouble saying "we" dropped the bomb. But ... we must accept a degree of responsibility....
Sorrow-Acre
We pay the price for our many forms of immaturity—but I prefer that to what seems to be the ironclad maturity of the well-cared-for Danes. ...
Her Pact With the Devil
The habit of forming pacts to shape her chosen life began when Karen Blixen was standing on a granite boulder at Folehave with her younger brother Thomas, then fourteen....
The Silver Swan
Two Women: Margaret and Doris
I've come to believe over the years that there is a core similarity that connects the lives of all women. I think it is our ability to adapt....
Doris Duke: A Lifetime Search for Faith
On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 I presented a talk to The Library Committee of The Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, New Mexico entitled "Doris Duke: A Lifetime Search for Faith."...
Vindication
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's grant of 1.6 million dollars to pay for the digitalization of thousands of tape-recorded oral histories of indigenous people has a special meaning for me....
Sallie Bingham Reads
A wise interviewer asked me yesterday what I hoped to achieve through the presentation of my two current books......
And Now, Margaret Sanger
Yesterday, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York removed the name of Margaret Sanger, "founder of the organization," from its Manhattan clinic because of her "harmful connection to the eugenics movement."...
What We Can’t Say Now
We need to define, and vigorously defend, the line between art and politics....
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....
Doris Duke
Two Women: Margaret and Doris
I've come to believe over the years that there is a core similarity that connects the lives of all women. I think it is our ability to adapt....
Doris Duke: A Lifetime Search for Faith
On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 I presented a talk to The Library Committee of The Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, New Mexico entitled "Doris Duke: A Lifetime Search for Faith."...
Vindication
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's grant of 1.6 million dollars to pay for the digitalization of thousands of tape-recorded oral histories of indigenous people has a special meaning for me....
And Now, Margaret Sanger
Yesterday, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York removed the name of Margaret Sanger, "founder of the organization," from its Manhattan clinic because of her "harmful connection to the eugenics movement."...
What We Can’t Say Now
We need to define, and vigorously defend, the line between art and politics....
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. ...
Writing
Flashing on the Sixties
I am not an unequivocal admirer of that period, those people, and all that they caused—or helped to cause—to happen, in the early 1960’s and continuing to this day....
Two Women: Margaret and Doris
I've come to believe over the years that there is a core similarity that connects the lives of all women. I think it is our ability to adapt....
Her Pact With the Devil
The habit of forming pacts to shape her chosen life began when Karen Blixen was standing on a granite boulder at Folehave with her younger brother Thomas, then fourteen....
Colors of the World
We are rounding the curve and coming into the homestretch—as we often do, both as individuals and as a culture—in the race toward what I'll call SUPERSENSITIVITY rather than its usual and somewhat discredited name, Political Correctness....
The Vanguard
I am looking forward to the rare opportunity that will be offered me, and I'm looking forward with even more interest to the fascinating variety of presentations that will make up the program....
The Way It Was
We all want to forget our history, especially when it is shameful, and for this reason I am particularly grateful for a just-published biography of my peers....
Smashing the Canon
We are still engaged—and will probably always be engaged—in smashing the canon....
Those Soft Kentucky Voices
We stopped yesterday in the middle of my class on writing memoir to listen to the verdict in Minneapolis that will send the policeman who murdered George Floyd to jail on all three counts....
Father and Dame Ivy
During a vacation trip to England years ago, I became aware, to my surprise, of my father's fascination with two British writers: Sylvia Townsend Warner and Ivy Compton-Burnett....
Women
Two Women: Margaret and Doris
I've come to believe over the years that there is a core similarity that connects the lives of all women. I think it is our ability to adapt....
Choice
No one in her right mind is "pro-abortion." I know from personal experience what a difficult decision this is. ...
Guilty Until Proved Innocent…
Does fearlessness on the part of girls and young women cancel judgement and common sense?...
Our Voices
I have to recognize that we have not made the progress in the arts that women have made in journalism for reasons of class and white privilege...
Doing the Laundry
I was converted a long time ago—one of the possibilities of privilege—to the belief that we women have more important things to do than the laundry....
Heterodoxy
Yesterday I was mesmerized by two presentations at our Women Writing Women's Lives Zoom meeting....
Mothers Are Hurting
The problems have always been with us, but they were easier to ignore when the economy boomed....
Fabulous Women
Here is the proof, internationally as well as nationally: women do more than survive; we lead....
My Dinner Guest
My dinner guest sits quietly as the sun sinks in the west behind her, but her quietness is temporary....
New Mexico
Flashing on the Sixties
I am not an unequivocal admirer of that period, those people, and all that they caused—or helped to cause—to happen, in the early 1960’s and continuing to this day....
Choice
No one in her right mind is "pro-abortion." I know from personal experience what a difficult decision this is. ...
Black Canyon
One of the many blessings of my life is the trail system in Hyde Park which starts about ten miles north of my house. ...
Guilty Until Proved Innocent…
Does fearlessness on the part of girls and young women cancel judgement and common sense?...
Vegetables and Recovery
For me, there's an irresistible connection between the baskets of glowing vegetables at our Saturday Farmers' Market and the hope expressed in this poster for recovery from addiction....
Living in a World on Fire
Driving down from Taos yesterday, I followed a dusty, beat-up pickup truck with an American flag painted on the tailgate....
The Lament of the Long Haul Trucker
I can't forget an eloquent letter in The Santa Fe New Mexican recently from a man who is invisible to most of us except when his monster eighteen-wheeler rushes past on the throughway....
Shooters
How often have those of us—and there are many—whose sharp intelligence and ambition have not provided an escape from unresolved psychological problems found a route to normalcy through intellectual achievement and acceptance?...
Vindication
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's grant of 1.6 million dollars to pay for the digitalization of thousands of tape-recorded oral histories of indigenous people has a special meaning for me....
Kentucky
Saving Wolf Pen Mill
Wake up, you well-off widows! We are all part of a world that is threatened by our individual decisions....
Huck and The Daughters
Mark Twain's novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, easily his masterpiece, was published eighteen years earlier and would have given the ladies palpitations if they had dared to read it....
Those Soft Kentucky Voices
We stopped yesterday in the middle of my class on writing memoir to listen to the verdict in Minneapolis that will send the policeman who murdered George Floyd to jail on all three counts....
Goodbye and Hello
The degree of change that has transpired since the long overdue advent of Black Lives Matter and the murder of Breonna Taylor in Louisville last spring is summed up for me in a Community Forum essay by columnist Quintez Brown....
Groundhog Pâté
I might have forgotten Groundhog Day entirely except for a box that’s just arrived from my dear friend, Wren Smith, in Kentucky....
Wolf Pen and the World
We never escape our past or our responsibility for our past, as we never escape the future we have agreed to create....
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 ...
My Family
My Grandmother Is Turning in Her Grave
My beloved grandmother could never have imagined that the enormous statue towering over her hometown would be pulled down, carved up and crated off to an uncertain future as it was a week ago....
The Way It Was
We all want to forget our history, especially when it is shameful, and for this reason I am particularly grateful for a just-published biography of my peers....
Father and Dame Ivy
During a vacation trip to England years ago, I became aware, to my surprise, of my father's fascination with two British writers: Sylvia Townsend Warner and Ivy Compton-Burnett....
Pink Seesaws and My Birthday
I just passed a most delightful birthday with my Santa Fe family, outdoors, in 45 degrees, with coats and coconut cake baked by my eldest granddaughter....
My Mother’s 116th Birthday: December 24, 2020
It has taken me so long, decades after her death, to realize what a blessed and blessing spirit my mother, Mary Caperton Bingham, was....
White Privilege
As I begin to re-read piles of research, looking for details I may have missed and will want to include in this final revision of Little Brother, I find myself face to face with this issue....
Little Brother
For the past four years, I've been chipping away at this complicated and difficult subject......
There Was an Old Woman Tossed up in a Basket
What we are all obliged to do now: to join in sweeping the cobwebs. There is a little time and a little space, provided by the pandemic, for such a sweeping......