Legal Affairs   R. T. W. “Judge” Duke, Jr. followed his father into the law and served on both sides of the bar. He began his study of law during his last two years at the University of Virginia (1872-1874) and completed his training in his father’s office, which he joined in 1875. His father […]

A Virginia Poet “He did not aspire to go down to posterity as either a prose-writer or a poet. But he possessed those deep feelings and vivid emotions and imaginative ideas which many who have them delight to express in writing or music or art, according as they may be endowed with these gifts of […]

At every stage of his life, Duke joined social, honorary, and philanthropic societies. While at the University, he discovered in the Washington Literary Society and the Zeta Psi fraternity both meaningful friendships and opportunities to exercise his gifts in leadership and oratory. After graduation, he served on multiple corporate boards–including that of the Bank of […]

A Virginia Democrat   Like his father and older brother, William R. Duke, R. T. W. Duke, Jr. was an active participant in the Commonwealth’s Democratic Party. R. T. W. Duke, Sr. served during Tom’s childhood as the representative of Virginia’s fifth Congressional district, for the then “Conservative” Party. Sounding a theme common to the […]

R. T. W. Duke, Jr. and the Romance of Confederate Defeat     In 1946, Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin wrote in The Making of a Southerner of her father’s childhood on a Georgia plantation. The expectation of slave ownership, she explained, “left a special stamp on men who lived this life. But more particularly,” she […]

Members of the Duke family have long supported the University of Virginia Library, particularly through donations of historically valuable material to Special Collections. In this project, made possible through the continued generosity of the Duke family, members of the Digital Services Department of the Albert Small Special Collections Library (SCDS) have pursued two goals. First, […]

Holdings Related to the Duke Family at the University of Virginia   Since members of the Duke family participated in so many different activities outside the home, they left a very wide paper trail indeed. The collections below, in what is by no means an exhaustive list, each contain items related to the Duke family. […]

Select Bibliography Of Works Consulted           Archer, Elizabeth F. “Paper Memories: Recalling the Dukes of Albemarle.” The Magazine of Albemarle County History 59 (2001): 85-126. Ayers, Edward L. Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction. New York.: Oxford University Press, 1992. Blake, Nelson M. William Mahone of Virginia: Soldier and […]

Timeline of Significant Events in the Life of R. T. W. Duke, Jr.   1853 – Birth to R. T. W. Duke, Sr. and Elizabeth Scott Eskridge Duke 1859 – Father forms the Albemarle Rifles, a volunteer militia company, after John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. 1861-65 – Civil War 1870-1874 – Enrolled at the […]

  R. T. W. Duke, Jr. remembered certain things with special fondness in his Recollections and Diaries. Like so many white Southerners of his generation, he barely missed service in the Civil War and devoted an enormous amount of energy to honoring those who did fight. He also earned a reputation in politics as a […]