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
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......
A President Who Knows Poetry
Poetry is essential in my view, the only art form complex enough to deal with the contradictions of human nature....
A Seat at the Table
Regardless of who wins this election, we as a people need to think about the results of the disruption of the past year....
The Meaning of Art
A group of our local artists on their own initiative, without official permission or sponsorship, built an altar in the Railyard Park....
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....
A Dream Deferred
I was unable to move through my bitter disappointment that my original dream, dependent on a man, had collapsed....
The Silver Swan
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....
The Next Step
How to live on nothing is a question the publishers have not condescended to consider....
Doris Duke
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
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......
Nevertheless She Persisted: 30 Years of Women Writing Women’s Lives
The conference reminded me that we women offer each other extraordinary support and encouragement in all walks of life, essential to our achievement and even to our survival....
Sallie Bingham Reads
A wise interviewer asked me yesterday what I hoped to achieve through the presentation of my two current books......
Starting Something
I attended some of those early meetings, since my then-husband was one of the founding group, but I don't remember venturing an opinion. In those days, the opinions of young women weren't usually regarded....
Intemperate
We are riven, today, not only by righteous concerns for justice on all levels but by the need to express those concerns in very loud voices...
Starting Again
The rest of us have to find a way to write bold and glittering and daring fiction without their form of fairy gold....
Women
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."...
Nevertheless She Persisted: 30 Years of Women Writing Women’s Lives
The conference reminded me that we women offer each other extraordinary support and encouragement in all walks of life, essential to our achievement and even to our survival....
Housedress
The housedress and its definition mark a shift in what we expect of women in the midst of this pandemic....
Brass Belles: The Missouri Ladies Marching Band
As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, I am remembering the role that music, as well as words, played in this extraordinary triumph....
Hats
The Peruvian hat makers shown in this film made by Erica Nguyen, a fellow at the Women's International Study Center here in Santa Fe, are part of an ancient tradition....
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."...
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....
New Mexico
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....
A Dream Deferred
I was unable to move through my bitter disappointment that my original dream, dependent on a man, had collapsed....
My Bear
She's not my bear, she's certainly not my friend, but I am very happy to share my porch with her. ...
Gold
At this time of year and on till the end of October, the hills around Santa Fe are heavy with gold hunters, carloads of people who want to look at the gold leaves on the Aspens....
Intemperate
We are riven, today, not only by righteous concerns for justice on all levels but by the need to express those concerns in very loud voices...
The Best of the Best: Small Town Newspapers
This past week brought about the demise of the Los Alamos Monitor here in New Mexico, done away with by its owner Landmark, with the usual excuses about declining advertising....
Claudio
I saw Claudio the other day, waiting for his order of barbecued ribs at the van that sits these days of the pandemic in a parking lot......
What’s Good About It
As we head into the sixth—or is it the seventh month?—of the pandemic, I'm reflecting on what sweet juice can be extracted from these sour grapes....
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 Mother’s Cookbook
I did make some progress... although probably my greatest accomplishment was mayonnaise made in a blender....
My Family
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....
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....