During the 2022-2023 school year, over 2,000 students visited Special Collections with a class, but few know the history of the collection and the woman who began curating it.
Upon his death in 1923, Julian Willis Abernethy, class of 1876, donated his entire book collection to Middlebury. Abernathy’s will stipulated that the books — including a sizable collection of works by Henry David Thoreau — must be kept behind glass and cared for. In order to preserve and grow the library, Viola Chittenden White joined the staff at Middlebury College in 1933 as the first curator of the Abernethy Library of American Literature.
Born in 1890 in New York City, White was a lifelong reader and voracious writer. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1911 before receiving a master’s degree from Columbia University and a PhD from the University of North Carolina. While pursuing her PhD, White wrote the first doctoral dissertation on American Renaissance writer Herman Melville.
Like Abernethy himself, White largely preferred 19th-century literature. She served as curator of the library until she retired in 1956, amassing some of the college’s most valuable items, including two rare manuscripts by Emily Dickinson, a signed copy of Robert Frost’s first book, “A Boy’s Will,” and a first edition copy of “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman. In 1939, she purchased one of the college’s most valuable items: Thoreau’s personal, annotated first edition copy of “Walden.”
In addition to curatorial work, White wrote poetry. Her first volume of poetry, “Horizons,” was published by Yale University Press in 1921. White went on to publish several other volumes and was the first woman to be selected in the Yale Series for Younger Poets.
White left over 5,000 manuscript pages behind upon her death in 1977. Her friend Storrs Lee edited her journals and published them in a collection called “Partridge in a Swamp,” the title a reference to a 1936 journal entry in which she asked, “Why do I hide my life like a partridge in the swamp?” Special Collections has some of White’s original journal pages, as well as copies of her books and “Partridge in a Swamp.”
White never married nor had children, instead choosing a more solitary life in Vermont. Lee described White as “essentially a loner, too shy to be a joiner.” She spent significant time in nature, often walking a twelve-mile loop to East Middlebury for breakfast at the local inn. She took a keen interest in the natural world, chronicling her walks in journals, which were later published in the volumes “Not Faster Than a Walk” (1939) and “A Vermont Diary” (1956).
Throughout her journal entries, White displayed her characteristic wit and introverted nature. In an entry from September 22, 1934, she wrote, “The President’s Reception for the faculty was held last night. What a fantastic way to enjoy ourselves, dolled up in stiff attire, talking platitudes for hours. Only, I did not fulfill either equation, for I did not enjoy myself and I came home after the first hour.”
Her journals also revealed a more radical side. Before coming to Middlebury, White was affiliated with the Socialist Party and pacifist movements. By 1940, she compiled an inventory of Abernethy’s collection and continued to build the college’s library until her retirement in 1956.
White’s devotion to academic learning, particularly notable in a time in which few women pursued PhDs, was instrumental in caring for and building the rich library that Special Collections boasts today. She is remembered for her important acquisitions and her carefully observed reflections on daily life, as an entry from 1934 notes.
“The part of my job which I do not enjoy is the social part — forcing students to take interest in the Abernethy collection,” White wrote. “The book buying is good fun, and in humble minor ways the position dovetails very neatly into my private life.”
Charlie Keohane ’24 (she/her) is an Editor at Large. She previously served as the SGA Correspondent and a Senior Writer.
She is an environmental writing major and a psychology minor from Northern California. Outside of academics, Charlie is a Senior Admissions Fellow at the Middlebury Admissions Office. She also is involved with the women’s track team and hosts Witching Hour, a radio show on 91.1 WRMC. In Spring 2023, she studied abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, watching Greta Gerwig movies, polar plunging, sending snail mail, and FaceTiming her rescue dog, Poppy.
