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Washington Duke
Washington Duke, 1925, Oil on canvas, 40" x 50," by John da Costa
Washington Duke (1820-1905), father of Benjamin and James Duke, founded the tobacco firm of W. Duke Sons & Company in Durham, North Carolina, in 1878. He was the benefactor of Trinity College, which later moved to Durham and became Duke University. His granddaughter, Doris Duke, donated this portrait to the University.
Artist John da Costa (1867-1931) was born in Teignmouth, England. He painted in oil, in the genre of portraits and classical subjects. Educated at Southampton and Paris, Da Costa received an Honorable Mention at the Paris Salon in 1906 and a medal in 1907. He lived in London, Newlyn, and Clanfield in Oxfordshire and became a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. His works were exhibited at the Royal Academician, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Engravers, and at European art galleries and museums. This portrait hangs on the wall to the right and opposite the main desk in the first floor lobby. -
Wartime Menu
This wartime menu depicts Duke dining choices for students during World War II. Rationing of items such as meat, sugar, butter, and canned goods was common. Unemployment during this time was high, while prices and wages were low. A filet mignon steak worth 50 cents would amount to $9.33 in 2024. Specials include the “co-ed special,” a peanut butter, jelly, and lettuce sandwich. -
War Day program, 1942.
From the Wartime at Duke Collection, 1917-[ongoing]. -
Walt Whitman's Memoranda During the War, 1876
"Of the present Volume most of its pages are verbatim renderings from such pencillings on the spot…I have perhaps forty such little note-books left, forming a special history of those years, for myself alone, full of associations never to be possibly said or sung. I wish I could convey to the reader the associations that attach to these soil'd and creas'd little livraisons,… Even these days, at the lapse of many years, I can never turn their tiny leaves, or even take one in my hand, without the actual army sights and hot emotions of the time rushing like a river in full tide through me."
From the introduction to Walt Whitman’s memoir of his experiences as a volunteer nurse, Memoranda During the War, 1876. Learn more about Whitman and his works at the Whitman Archive. -
Walt Whitman. Specimen Days. Philadelphia: R. Welsh & Co., 1882.
In Specimen Days, Whitman describes a New York soldier whose “wound discharg'd much” and whom “diarrhoea had prostrated” as being “very manly and affectionate.” The soldier died several days later. The story is only one of dozens that Whitman chronicled in this text during his days in the hospitals of Washington, D.C., where he comforted many Civil War soldiers and witnessed their untimely deaths. -
Walt Whitman. Specimen Days. Philadelphia: R. Welsh & Co., 1882.
In Specimen Days, Whitman describes a New York soldier whose “wound discharg'd much” and whom “diarrhoea had prostrated” as being “very manly and affectionate.” The soldier died several days later. The story is only one of dozens that Whitman chronicled in this text during his days in the hospitals of Washington, D.C., where he comforted many Civil War soldiers and witnessed their untimely deaths. -
Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman, 1867.
Printed first edition to compare to the MS fragment "this compost". -
Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass. New York: [Walt Whitman], 1867.
In this edition of Leaves of Grass, the phrase, “I Sing the Body Electric” appears for the first time. -
Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass. Brooklyn, NY: [Walt Whitman], 1855. Cover.
Walt Whitman. Leaves of the Grass. Brooklyn, NY: [Walt Whitman], 1855. First Edition. -
Walt Whitman. Drum-Taps. New York: Walt Whitman, 1865.
This first edition copy of Drum-Taps shows the graphic clarity of Whitman's war poetry, describing how “hard the breathing rattles” in a man wounded with a “stump of the arm.” -
Walt Whitman. Drum-Taps. New York: Walt Whitman, 1865.
This first edition copy of Drum-Taps shows the graphic clarity of Whitman's war poetry, describing how “hard the breathing rattles” in a man wounded with a “stump of the arm.”
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