Raleigh, NC -- Philanthropist Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, heiress to a vast Guilded Age fortune built on tobacco, has died.
The 91-year-old Durham resident died Wednesday at Duke Hospital, one of the many institutions endowed by her family. She was twice married and the mother of seven children.
Semans was the great-granddaughter of Washington Duke, a Confederate soldier who returned home after the Civil War and planted tobacco. With his sons, Duke helped build the worldwide popularity of cigarettes. He also endowed a small Methodist college that would become Duke University.
Semans was a patron of the arts and charities, as well as a crusader for equal rights for women. She was elected to the Durham City Council in the 1950s and was a trustee at Duke University for 20 years.
AP