Celebrating Helen C.

In honor of Helen C. White’s 117th birthday, College Library gave away 117 cupcakes on Tuesday, November 26, to students entering and leaving the library. Our building’s namesake was born in New Haven, CT, in 1896 and became the first woman full professor in the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A respected scholar in the English Department, Helen was known for her teaching ability and the fact that she almost exclusively wore purple garments. For this reason, the cupcakes were topped with purple frosting.

For more information about Helen C. White, please see our Web site. The UW Archives also has put together a selection of images of Helen C. throughout the years and for more photos of cupcake giveaways, see our Flickr photostream.