American tobacco magnate and philanthropist.

The son of Washington Duke, who had entered the tobacco business after the American Civil War, James entered the family business with his brother Benjamin (1855–1929). When the principal American cigarette-manufacturing companies merged to form the American Tobacco Company in 1890, James became its president. He later helped to organize the American Snuff Company (1900) and the American Cigar Company (1901). In 1911 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the monopolistic American Tobacco Company, and Duke bore the chief task of breaking the company up into the separate corporations that henceforth became the principal cigarette manufacturers of the United States.

The Duke family contributed heavily to Trinity College in Durham, which was later expanded and renamed Duke University under provisions of a fund created by James Duke in 1924.