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{{Infobox person
| name               = Benjamin Newton Duke
| image              = Portrait of Benjamin Newton Duke.jpg
| caption            = 
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1855|4|25}}
| birth_place        = [[Durham, North Carolina]], U.S.
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1929|1|8|1855|4|25}}
| death_place        = [[New York City]], U.S.
| occupation         = [[Tobacco]] entrepreneur
| known_for          = [[American Tobacco Company]]<br> [[Duke Energy]]
| relatives          = [[James Buchanan Duke]] (brother)<br/>[[Brodie Duke]] (half-brother)
| spouse             = Sarah Pearson Angier
| father             = [[Washington Duke]]
| mother             = Artelia Roney
| children           = [[Mary Duke Biddle|Mary Lillian Duke]] <br> [[Angier Buchanan Duke]]
}}
'''Benjamin Newton Duke''' (April 25, 1855 – January 8, 1929) was an American [[tobacco]], [[textile]] and [[energy]] industrialist and [[philanthropist]]. He served as vice-president at [[American Tobacco Company]], being also founder of [[Duke Energy]].

==Life and career==
[[File:1009 Fifth Avenue 004 crop.JPG|thumb|[[Benjamin N. Duke House]] in New York City]]
He was the son of industrialist [[Washington Duke]] and his second wife Artelia Roney. His older half-brother was [[Brodie Duke|Brodie Leonidas Duke]] (1846–1919) and his full brother was [[James Buchanan Duke]] (1856–1925).

On February 21, 1875, Benjamin Duke married Sarah Pearson Angier, with whom he had a daughter, [[Mary Duke Biddle|Mary Lillian Duke]], and a son, [[Angier Buchanan Duke]]. Portraits of all four members of the family were commissioned from the Spanish painter [[Joaquín Sorolla]] in 1911.

He entered his father's tobacco business, and in 1890 became vice-president of the [[American Tobacco Company]]. In 1892, the Duke family opened their [[Erwin Mill|first textile busines]]s in [[Durham, North Carolina]], with Benjamin Duke at its head.

In 1905, he and his brother James founded the Southern Power Company, which later became known as [[Duke Energy]]. The company initially supplied electrical power to the Duke textile factory. Within two decades, their power facilities had been greatly expanded, and they were supplying electricity to more than 300 cotton mills and other industrial companies through an electrical grid that supplied cities and towns in the [[Piedmont (United States)|Piedmont Region]] of North and [[South Carolina]].

In 1908, he had his half brother Brodie declared incompetent and taken to a sanitarium.<ref name="Duke's Divorced Wife Guilty of Defrauding">{{cite news |title=Duke's Divorced Wife Guilty of Defrauding |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=a01RAAAAIBAJ&sjid=gWcDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2411%2C2714140 |accessdate=13 August 2018 |work=The Gazette Times |date=13 August 1908}}</ref>

Benjamin Duke and his brother were major contributors to the economic growth of the North Carolina economy and would expand into other areas with sizable investments in railroads and banks.

Benjamin was a primary benefactor of Trinity College after it relocated to Durham in 1892. Over the years, he donated substantial funds for improvements, additions, and scholarships. Between 1926 and 1929, he donated approximately $3,000,000 (more than $30,000,000 in [[inflation|2005 dollars]]) to twenty-seven different southern institutions of higher learning.

Today, [[Duke University]] offers the Benjamin Newton Duke Scholars program in honor of Benjamin Duke's life and philanthropy. "The B.N.," as it is known on Duke's campus, is a full-ride [[scholarship]] to Duke University. The B.N. is awarded to students who excel academically and are committed to service and [[civic engagement]]. "BNs" must also display empathy, intentionality, imagination, and a commitment to building community. All applying students are considered for the scholarship. In addition to a full scholarship to Duke University and programs within their time at Duke, B.N. Duke Scholars also complete two "summers of service" in which they complete community service projects. One Summer of Service must take place in a low-income community in [[the Carolinas]], and one is carried out in an international location of the scholars' choice.<ref name="Benjamin N. Duke Scholars">{{cite news |title=Benjamin N. Duke Scholars |url=https://www.ousf.duke.edu/page/BNDuke |accessdate=20 February 2019 |work=Duke University |date=2017}}</ref>

Following his death at his home in [[New York City]] in 1929, Benjamin Duke's remains were brought back to North Carolina for interment with his father and brother James in Memorial Chapel in the Duke University Chapel on the campus of [[Duke University]].<ref>{{cite news |title=B. N. Duke, 73, Dies After Long Illness. Benjamin N. Duke. |quote=Benjamin N. Duke, the last of the famous Duke tobacco family, which built one of the largest American fortunes of the nineteenth century and then gave most of it away in philanthropy, died at 5:45 o'clock yesterday morning at his home, 2 East Eighty-ninth Street.  |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=January 9, 1929}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book|last=Duke|first=D.W.|title=The Duke Legacy|year=2014|publisher=iUniverse|isbn=978-1-4917-2621-1 |oclc=875351886}}

==External links==
{{Portal|Biography}}
{{Commons category-inline}}

{{American Tobacco Company}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Duke, Benjamin Newton}}
[[Category:1855 births]]
[[Category:1929 deaths]]
[[Category:American energy industry executives]]
[[Category:American philanthropists]]
[[Category:American tobacco industry executives]]
[[Category:American Tobacco Company|B]]
[[Category:Businesspeople from Durham, North Carolina]]
[[Category:Duke family]]
[[Category:Duke Energy people]]
[[Category:Burials at Memorial Chapel (Duke University Chapel)]]