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The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation was established in 1996 to manage the considerable charitable bequests made by philanthropist Doris Duke (1912-1993) in her will, as well as to manage her Duke Farms (Somerville, New Jersey), Shangri La (Honolulu, Hawaii), and Rough Point (Newport, Rhode Island) properties. This collection consists of 35 oral histories (1998-2009) given by the staff of these properties and the Newport Restoration Foundation, and includes testimonies of personal friends of Duke.

Born on November 22, 1912, Doris Duke was the only child of James Buchanan (J.B.) Duke, a founder of the American Tobacco Company and Duke Energy Company and a benefactor of Duke University, and Nanaline Holt Duke. Inheriting a bulk of her father's estate in 1925, which included Duke Farms in New Jersey, Rough Point in Newport, R.I., and a mansion in New York City, Doris was soon dubbed by the press as "the richest girl in the world." Although Doris did her best to live a private life, she contributed to a number of public causes and was an active supporter of the arts, historic preservation, and the environment. Doris Duke died in October 1993 at the age of 80. In her will she left the majority of her estate to the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The Doris Duke Papers were created by combining materials maintained by staff at the Duke Business Office and/or household staff of the Main Residence, on Doris Duke's behalf. It mostly contains the personal papers generated by or about Doris Duke throughout her lifetime. The collection covers the period 1798 to 2003, although the majority of the collection is concentrated in the 1930s to 1993. The collection is organized into 9 series limited to Doris Duke's personal relationships, dealings, and interests: Administrative Records, Personal Correspondence, Financial Records, Legal Records, Reports and Summaries, Subject Files, and Duke Business Office Safe.

Doris Duke's father, James Buchanan (J.B.) Duke, established the Duke Endowment as a perpetual charitable trust in 1924. Mr. Duke designed the fund to be both flexible and enduring, but limited its efforts to the Carolinas and to four program areas: child care, health care, higher education, and rural churches. Miss Duke became a trustee of the Endowment in 1933. The collection spans the years 1925 to 2001, with the bulk dating from 1956 through 1993. Collection materials primarily document the administrative business of the Endowment and include correspondence, news stories, meeting materials, financial statements, legal records, reports, and proposals. Many of the materials relate specifically to the Endowment's interests in private university education and health care.

The Falcon Lair residence was purchased by Doris Duke in April, 1953 primarily for use on her occasional visits to California and for use while she was in transit to or from her residence in Honolulu. Compared to her other estates, the residence was not large, however, being located in the hills above Benedict Canyon overlooking Beverly Hills, it served as a retreat from public life. Soon after the home was purchased, Doris Duke hired Tony Duquette to supervise the entire redecoration and remodeling of Falcon Lair. The home was renovated again in the mid-1970s. Miss Duke lived at Falcon Lair until her death in 1993, and in 1998 the property was sold by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The collection is arranged into two series: Administrative Records and Architectural Records. It spans the years 1937 to 1999, beginning with the purchase and interior renovation of the home and ending with maintenance and general upkeep of the home after Doris Duke's death in 1993. The collection primarily documents the expenses and daily operations of renovating, running, and maintaining the Falcon Lair residence, and includes invoices and receipts for services and repairs, correspondence, memoranda, and telegrams relating to routine matters of the residence, expenses, and photo inventories of furniture, fixtures, and other household items. A majority of the architectural records detail alterations and additions to the Falcon Lair residence.

Rough Point was purchased by James B. Duke in 1922. When Duke passed away in 1925, he left the home to his 12-year-old daughter Doris, subject to Mrs. (Nanaline) Duke's life interest. Although Nanaline Duke continued to spend her summers at Rough Point, in the early 1950s she took up permanent residence in New York City and emptied Rough Point of all its furnishings. It was around this time that Doris Duke once again became a frequent visitor to Newport and turned her attention to renovating and refurnishing the family estate. Upon her death in 1993, Miss Duke bequeathed the estate to the Newport Restoration Foundation with the directive that it be opened to the public as a museum. The collection primarily documents the expenses and daily operations of running, renovating, and maintaining the Rough Point estate, and includes invoices and receipts for repairs and renovations to the residence, correspondence and memoranda relating to routine matters of the residence, expenses, inventories of furniture, fixtures, and other household items, and several appraisals of the residence and its household effects. A majority of the architectural records detail alterations and additions to the Rough Point residence as designed by the Horace Trumbauer firm.

Traveling through many Muslim countries and parts of India during her honeymoon, Doris Duke was fascinated by Islamic cultural traditions, art and architecture. A visit to the Taj Mahal inspired Duke to eventually commission plans for the house she built in Hawaii. Duke engaged the architectural firm of Wyeth and King to design her Hawaiian home, and architects Marion Sims Wyeth and H. Drewry Baker worked closely with Duke to design the home, with Duke providing sketches and photographs of buildings and architectural details she had seen during her travels. Throughout her life, Doris Duke enthusiastically designed and redesigned her home and gardens, and in 1965 made a codicil in her will directing her executors to organize a foundation to manage and maintain Shangri La for the study and understanding of Middle Eastern art and culture. The collection tells the story of Shangri La, the most intimate of Doris Duke's residences. While the collection spans the years 1932 to 2003, the materials primarily begin in 1936, with correspondence relating to early discussions of architects to design Shangri La in what was then the U.S. Territory of Hawaii, and end in the mid to late 1990s with materials related to the handling of the Estate of Doris Duke after her death in 1993. The materials primarily detail the design, construction, decoration, and furnishing of Shangri La and the routine business matters of its daily operation.

Doris Duke was the only child of James Buchanan (J.B.) Duke, a founder of the American Tobacco Company and Duke Energy Company and a benefactor of Duke University, and Nanaline Holt Duke. Inheriting a bulk of her father's estate in 1925, which included Duke Farms in New Jersey, Rough Point in Newport, R.I., and a mansion in New York City, Doris was soon dubbed by the press as "the richest girl in the world." Although Doris did her best to live a private life, she carried on the Duke family's pattern of philanthropy by contributing to a number of public causes such as the arts, historic preservation, and the environment. Doris Duke died in October 1993 at the age of 80. In her will she left the majority of her estate to the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The Doris Duke Photograph Collection was created by combining color and black and white photographs, slides, negatives, and other photographic formats contained in albums, boxes, picture frames, and envelopes.

"Stewardess" aboard the ship; resident of Grimsby[?], England Collection comprises a manuscript journal and log book (59 pgs+ blanks) authored by Thompson while on a voyage between England and Jamaica from March 25 to April 28, 1935. However, the journal actually closes with a description of her train trip home on April 29. Includes Thompson's 33 black-and-white photographs, 2 telegrams she received from a Captain Greenhill, her certificate of discharge, and an Irish sweepstakes ticket for the Derby syndicate (dated June 5) that she purchased during the voyage. In addition, Thompson copied into the journal a 3-pg informational article on bananas, written by H.C. Bower, and kept a record of the ship's log for the trip. The S.S. Tetela was a cargo and occasional passenger ship that belonged to the banana-importing firm Elders & Fyffes, a wholly owned subsidiary of the United Fruit Company.

The Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize is awarded by Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies to visual artists and writers working on documentary projects. The collection houses the work of 16 documentarians, all winners of the Center for Documentary Studies Lange-Taylor Prize from 1996 to 2020: Chinen Aimi, Rob Amberg, Mary Berridge, Peter Brown, Steven Cozart, Jason Eskenazi, Michel Huneault, Misty Keasler, Katherine Yungyee Kim, Roger LeMoyne, Jim Lommasson, Deborah Luster, Dona Ann McAdams, Daniel Ramos, Amanda Russhell Wallace, and Donald Weber. Their portfolios total 139 color and black-and-white photographic prints, 2 illustrated publications, and 6 digital videos. The projects engage with a wide variety of topics: the culture of boxing gyms; the effects of highway construction in the Appalachian mountains of N.C.; the experiences of HIV-positive women; the changing culture and traditions of Jews in Azerbaijan; the lives of older schizophrenics institutionalized in the U.S.; the experiences of Mexican immigrants and their families in Chicago; "colorism," prejudice within one's own racial community based on relative skin hue; a French-Canadian community coping with environmental and social trauma caused by a train derailment; the people, cultures, and landscapes of the U.S. High Plains; the experiences of Korean families affected and separated by conflicts, borders, and cultural identities; grieving and family in an African American community; crime, prostitution, and addiction in Ukraine; the impact of colonizers on the island of Okinawa; a Guatemala city landfill and its inhabitants; portraits of incarcerated people in Louisiana; and the effects of war on the former Yugoslavia. Acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University.

Dorothea Dix was an American author, teacher, and reformer who advocated for improving treatment and facilities for mental health care. She also served as a superintendent for women nurses during the American Civil War. This collection consists of assorted pieces of correspondence and poetry by Dix, many relating to her health, treatment of patients, and other personal topics. Includes a 1862 letter signed by Abraham Lincoln relaying her recommendations to Edwin Stanton.