Through a series of interviews, the origins and subsequent activities of the Duke Endowment are set forth, with particular focus on the personality and career of the fonder. Associates of James B. Duke (1857-1925) and persons active in his manifold interest provide personal reminiscences, anecdotes, and comments on the Duke family, the career of Duke, the development of the Duke Power Company and various other business ventures designed to advance the Piedmont Region of North Carolina, his early interests in southern education, in particular Trinity College (now Duke University), and developments since his death. A number of the memoirs also contain first hand material on life in the Piedmont in the early years of the century and the economic and social changes brought by industrialization, which followed hard upon the provision of dependable power. Others discuss the establishment of Duke University, with much material on the faculty and presidents during the Trinity College era. Recent efforts of the Endowment in education, religion, and hospital work in the South are considered.