1. Edwina Maud Whitney was an American librarian and educator who served as one of the earliest librarians at the Connecticut Agricultural College from 1900 to 1934.
18 Facts About Edwina Whitney
1. 2.
Edwina Whitney served as a German instructor from 1901 to 1926 and an assistant professor of German from 1926 to 1934.
3.
Edwina Whitney was born in the Whitney homestead, a white house that is still extant, on Route 195 in Storrs, Connecticut, on February 26,1868.
4.
Edwina Whitney's father died a few months before she was born, leaving her mother to run the orphanage and raise their daughter.
5.
Edwina Whitney attended grade school in Storrs alongside future Connecticut governor Wilbur Lucius Cross.
6.
Edwina Whitney attended Middletown High School and Northfield Seminary and earned a Bachelor of Philosophy degree from Oberlin College in 1894.
7.
Edwina Whitney taught German and English at Milwaukee College in Wisconsin for one year before returning to Connecticut to teach at Windsor High School for four years.
8.
Edwina Whitney succeeded Jessie Spencer Bowen, who had served as the college's first librarian since 1897 and resigned when she got married.
9.
Edwina Whitney was the sole breadwinner of her household, which consisted of her mother and her lifelong companion and housekeeper, Pearl Fisher.
10.
Active in the college and the community, Edwina Whitney founded the college's Women's Club in 1903 and served as its president for six years.
11.
Edwina Whitney belonged to the Mansfield chapter of the Connecticut State Grange from 1901 to 1940 and served as its secretary until 1903.
12.
Edwina Whitney was a member of the American Library Association and the Connecticut Library Association and regularly attended their annual meetings.
13.
Edwina Whitney received official greetings from President Lyndon B Johnson, Governor John Dempsey, and Oberlin College President Robert K Carr.
14.
Edwina Whitney donated her diary spanning 1901 through 1952 to the Mansfield Historical Society in 1960.
15.
Edwina Whitney's diary is filled with acerbic comments about students conversing or making out in the library, along with laments about long-winded faculty meetings and the couples-oriented college social scene.
16.
Edwina Whitney died in her sleep at the age of 102 at the Natchaug Convalescent Hospital in Mansfield, where she had lived since 1962.
17.
Edwina Whitney was interred in the family plot at Storrs Cemetery, on a hill overlooking the UConn campus.
18.
Edwina Whitney Hall, named after her father, was the first major campus building.