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
When We Work Together
Probably, these two women don't know each other but they share certain defining characteristics: age, wisdom, and a recognition that the earth is our mother....
Heterodoxy
Yesterday I was mesmerized by two presentations at our Women Writing Women's Lives Zoom meeting....
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....
Mothers Are Hurting
The problems have always been with us, but they were easier to ignore when the economy boomed....
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....
Fabulous Women
Here is the proof, internationally as well as nationally: women do more than survive; we lead....
The Silver Swan
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....
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....
Doris Duke
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. ...
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....
Writing
Heterodoxy
Yesterday I was mesmerized by two presentations at our Women Writing Women's Lives Zoom meeting....
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....
The Blessing of Snow
For anyone who lives where early January brings the first major snowfall, there is a feeling that everything is right with the world....
Fifteen Hours of Darkness: The Solstice
For me this solstice has special meaning, perhaps because last night at sundown I was hoping to see the close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, so close they are being called "The Christmas Star."...
Let Us Instead Consider
I've never been enthusiastic about writing prompts, but these were of a higher imaginative quality than anything I've encountered before. ...
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....
An Index of First Lines
We all need comfort, especially now with the pandemic raging across the nation. I was reminded of my all-time comfort sources: an open log fire, a line of poetry, and a beautiful overblown pink rose....
Little Brother
For the past four years, I've been chipping away at this complicated and difficult subject......
Women
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....
We Must Listen
We are in the time now of the spouting of the dragon's teeth but the soil was prepared for them decades ago. ...
Merry Solitude
As I prepare to enjoy Christmas in blissful solitude, I'm particularly grateful for having learned during the past ten years how to love myself alone....
Fifteen Hours of Darkness: The Solstice
For me this solstice has special meaning, perhaps because last night at sundown I was hoping to see the close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, so close they are being called "The Christmas Star."...
Hidden Heroines
The dramatic figure of Richard Oakes obscures two Native women who were crucial to the eighteen-month occupation of Alcatraz....
Why Do Women Have to Be Nice?
O'Keeffe's assertion of ownership of a mountain is outrageous and refreshingly so, in itself affirming that she was not a "nice woman."...
New Mexico
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....
The Blessing of Snow
For anyone who lives where early January brings the first major snowfall, there is a feeling that everything is right with the world....
Two More Seconds of Daylight
Where tribes were destroyed or driven out, many of us relative newcomers are not aware of the history that confronts us here in the Southwest every day....
A Bright Light
This week, president-elect Joe Biden’s appointment of Laguna pueblo native, Debra Haaland, as Secretary of the Interior, gives proof positive of change....
The Paper Carrier’s Prayer
Every year at about this time, Yolanda leaves a typed note with the newspaper....
Taos Pueblo and the Battle for Blue Lake
Cooperation to restore rights, to serve justice, and to recognize the sacred. That's what I hope for when our new administration takes over in January....
The Way to Do It
What has happened since to weaken our moral fiber and make some of us unwilling to sacrifice?...
Why Do Women Have to Be Nice?
O'Keeffe's assertion of ownership of a mountain is outrageous and refreshingly so, in itself affirming that she was not a "nice woman."...
At Last
Radical change is never achieved slowly and quietly. This is a conservative country, by and large, and we have to be shaken out of our complacency for anything notable to happen....
Kentucky
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 ...
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 Family
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......
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....