, 1883 White was born at the
American Legation in London on March 17, 1884. He was the son of
Henry White (1850–1927) and Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherfurd (1853–1916). His father was a diplomat during the 1890s and 1900s who served as United States Ambassador to France and Italy, and one of the signers of the
Treaty of Versailles. in 1920. His stepmother was the daughter of
William Henry Vanderbilt (1821–1885) and the granddaughter of
Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877). His paternal grandparents were John Campbell White and Eliza Ridgely. They family was wealthy and socially well-connected in
Maryland where, as a boy, his father was taken to meet then-President
Franklin Pierce and spent much of his childhood at
Hampton, the family estate which today is run by the
National Park Service. His maternal grandparents were
Lewis Morris Rutherfurd (1816–1892), the
lawyer and pioneering
astrophotographer, and Margaret Stuyvesant Chanler (1820–1890). Through his mother, his uncle was
Stuyvesant Rutherfurd and another uncle was
Winthrop Rutherfurd. White graduated from
Harvard University in 1907. ==Career==