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[Identification of item], Newman Ivey White papers, University Archives, Duke University.
The Newman Ivey White papers was received by the University Archives as a gift in 1949, 1980, 1989.
Processed by University Archives staff, completed June 2, 1989. Correspondence and research notes were refoldered; however, original acidic paper folders have been retained, as notes on them make up an index to the correspondence. These are stored in Box 6. Deteriorated photo negatives were removed, as prints of the images exist within the papers.
Encoded by Jill Katte, June 5, 2003
This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.
Educator, Shelley biographer. Professor of English, Trinity College and Duke University, 1919-1948. Author,
Known in his time as an eminent Shelley scholar, Newman Ivey White was born in Statesville, North Carolina on February 3, 1892. He grew up in Greensboro, where his father, James Houston White, died in 1912. White entered Trinity College in Durham in 1909, graduating magna cum laude in 1913. During his student days, he was a member of the varsity tennis team for three years; he later coached the school's teams. White entered the graduate program at Trinity, obtaining his M.A. in 1914. He then went to Harvard, where he acquired another M.A. (1915) and the Ph.D. (1918). His dissertation was on Percy Shelley's dramatic poems. While at Trinity he had served as an assistant in English and Latin; he later he filled an instructorship at Alabama Polytechnic institute (1915-1916), and taught English at Washington University in St. Louis. He returned to Trinity in 1919 as a member of the English Department. In 1922 he married Marie Anne Updike, a fellow member of the department from 1927 to 1955 who taught modern literature and drama.
Mr. and Mrs. White shared an interest in folksong, and as a scholar, Dr. White authored
Aside from scholarship, Newman and Marie White were known for their interest in progressive causes. Professor White took an interest in election reform, and in child care facilities for working mothers. He was associated with the West Durham Nursery School (1934-1936), and later the Child Care Association, of which he was chairman and member of the board of directors (1944-1946). He was also a moving force behind the establishment of the Durham Labor and Materials Exchange (1933), a clearinghouse for information about jobs, goods and services available to Durham's unemployed. During World War II, Dr. White served on the Duke University Defense Council, and arranged for publication of articles promoting national unity in the crisis.
White was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the American Association of University Professors, the American Folklore Society, the Modern Language Association and other scholarly associations, both in the United States and in England. His service to Duke University included membership on the University Research Council and on the Executive Committee of the Friends of Duke University Library.
During the last year of his life, Newman White was engaged in doing research for a biography of William Godwin. He was at Harvard when he died suddenly on December 6, 1948. Mrs. White died in 1975, and is buried in Statesville with her husband.
Correspondence, lectures, research materials, including photostatic copies of letters, manuscripts, and graphics, along with printed matter, miscellaneous writings, and other papers, with bulk dates of 1936-1948. There is little in the collection that relates to Prof. White's early career. Most of the material appears to have been collected in the course of his work on the English Romantic poets; a small amount of material, comprising reprints and lectures, concerns folklore. Much of the correspondence is between White and other students of the English poets; subjects of the letters include differing opinions and disputes over the interpretation of events in Shelley's life. Other correspondents, among them H.L. Mencken and George Bernard Shaw, congratulate White on his publications. Several folders of correspondence with members of the publishing firm of Alfred A. Knopf concern the publication of
These and related materials may be accessed under the following subject headings in the Duke University Libraries online catalog.
With a sub-series, letters received after the publication of his biography of Shelley, 1940. Arranged alphabetically by correspondent. One folder of miscellaneous correspondence is filed under White, N.I. The major correspondents include Frederick L. Jones, editor of Mary Shelley's letters, Lord Abinger, the Marchesa Enrica Della Robbia, Payson G. Gates, Ellsworth Barnard, artist Mrs. W. Murray Crane, Thomas J. Wise, and members of Keats and Shelley societies. There are several folders of correspondence with people at Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. concerning publications; among these correspondents are Blanche Knopf and Sidney R. Jacobs. The publication contract is also in this file. Other correspondents include George Bernard Shaw, George L. Kittredge, Percy Long, of the Modern Language Association, H.L. Mencken, Sir John C. Shelley- Rolls, John H. Smith, and L.C. Thompson. The letters concern book reviews, and interpretations of the Romantic poets, research requests to libraries, archives, and booksellers, and include correspondence from other students of literature at institutions in the United States and in Europe. Indexes to the correspondence can be found in Box 6 and in the University Archives collection file.
Poetry, limericks, lectures, and reviews. White's Ph.D. dissertation (1 vol., bound,
Periodicals and reprints, including issues of the
Photostatic copies of letters, paintings, illustrations, etc. pertaining to Shelley and to William Godwin; bibliographies on the Romantic poets; typed copies of diaries of Claire Clairmont and Jane Clairmont, Maria and John Gibson, ca. 1814-1825; page proofs and index for the
This copy of
This correspondence index provides a record of all incoming and outgoing correspondence within the collection. Additional indexes to White's correspondence can be found in the University Archives collection file.