Collector of African American and North Carolina regional folklore. A native of North
Carolina, White graduated from Trinity College (Duke University) and received a Ph.D.
in English from Harvard University.
While working on his doctorate, he taught English at the Alabama Polytechnic
Institute. At Auburn University, he collected African American songs from students,
citizens, and local Black singers, a compilation that is still preserved in the Auburn
University Library’s Special Collections. White published his first article on methods of
folklore collection in 1916 and accumulated a substantial number of songs, reflecting the
rural Alabama culture, before he returned to teach at Trinity College in 1919.
At Trinity with colleague Walter Clinton Jackson, White compiled and edited An
Anthology of Verse by American Negroes (1924). A pioneering treatise, it included
detailed bibliographical notes by White. He hoped the text would educate Whites about
Black perspectives and provide Blacks a literary heritage, thus establishing a basis for
racial coopera-tion.
White resumed collecting African American songs from his students in North Carolina
and compiled a seminal book, American Negro Folk-Songs (1928), his major contribution
to folklore scholarship. This tome gave permanency to part of the African American oral
tradition and earned White recognition as a folklore authority.
White’s primary scholarship focused on the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. He
chaired the Trinity English Department, abandoning his folklore studies for almost a
decade until 1943, when he accepted the general editorship of the Frank C.Brown
Collection ofNorth Carolina Folklore. White, who served two terms as president of the
North Carolina Folklore Society, completed only the first volume before his death.
Elizabeth D.Schafer
References
Cannon, James, III, and Lewis Patton. 1950. In Memoriam: Newman Ivey White, Scholar and
Humanitarian, February 3, 1892-December 6, 1948. Duke University Library Bulletin:
(Newman Ivey White Memorial Issue). 24.
White, Newman Ivey. 1916. The Collection of Folk-Lore. Proceedings of the Alabama Educational
Association 35:119–126.
——. 1946. Organization of the Frank C.Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore. Yearbook
of the American Philosophical Society 1945. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, pp.
218–219.
——. ed. 1952. The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore. Vol. 1. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press.