Mary Duke Biddle (née Mary Lillian Duke) was born on November 16, 1887, in Durham, North Carolina, into one of the most influential families of the South. She was the only daughter of Benjamin Newton Duke and the granddaughter of Washington Duke, the tobacco industrialist who built a business empire that shaped the region’s economy and the family’s lasting fortune.

Mary pursued her studies at Trinity College, which later became Duke University, renamed in honor of her family’s benefaction. At the time, Trinity was one of the few Southern academic institutions admitting women. She graduated in 1907 with a degree in English.

Following the tradition of her family, Mary devoted much of her life to charitable giving and cultural enrichment, especially through her support of her alma mater, Duke University. An ardent lover of opera and theater, she was especially drawn to the arts, which became a central focus of her charitable giving.

In 1956, she established the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, supporting the arts, arts education and non-profits that fostered student success in the Triangle region of North Carolina. She directed that at least half of the income of the foundation should go to Duke University, ensuring the institution she cherished would always have the resources to nurture scholarship, music and the arts. With the support of the foundation, music was established in 1960 as an independent department at Duke, no longer incorporated in the Department of Aesthetic, Art and Music. The foundation went on to contribute more than $650,000 toward the construction of the university’s first music building, which opened in 1974 and was named the Mary Duke Biddle Music Building in her honor. Today, her portrait appears in a brightly colored mural inside the music building, where generations of student leaders and musicians pass by each day, a living reminder of her enduring legacy in education and the arts.

Beyond her devotion to music and the arts, Mary also held a lifelong appreciation for jewelry, collecting a beautiful wardrobe of treasured pieces that reflected her elegance. She held a particular love for Cartier, frequenting the Maison’s Fifth Avenue salon during her time in New York, finding joy in the craftsmanship of its creations. From diamonds, colored diamonds to lustrous pearls, Mary adored jewels of every kind, each reflecting her discerning eye for beauty.