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Purpose and benefits

James Buchanan Duke (1856–1925), or ‘Buck’, as he was commonly known, was born into a tobacco business dynasty. Under his guidance, W. Duke, Sons and Company swiftly rose to cultivate a global tobacco empire culminating in victory in the ‘tobacco wars’ and Duke’s elevation to president of the American Tobacco Company. When the US government dissolved the tobacco trust in 1911, a major setback for Duke, he merely switched his attentions to the energy business. The Southern Power Company, which he founded with his brothers in 1905, subsequently became Duke Power and remains so to this day.