Blanche DaCosta Whitney Collection

Blanche Da Costa Whitney was born September 24, 1882 in Chicago. She studied with Rudolph Ganz at Chicago Musical College before joining Mme Schumann-Heink, a noted opera signer, to Europe. Da Costa sang leading opera roles in Germany. She was forced to leave Germany by World War I and returned to America. She had a son, Frederick Berman, by her first husband. Her son died in 1945. She married Warren C. Whitney, vice president of A. B. Chase Piano Company in 1918. They moved to Denver in 1927 where she joined the Voice Faculty of the Lamont School of Music. She continued performing as well as opening her own teaching studio. In 1959 she retired and moved into Park Manor where she lived until her death in 1975.

The collection at the University of Denver Archives includes a biography and two scrapbooks that chronicle the musical life of Blanche Da Costa Whitney.