Originally named Edith Mildred, she was born in Ohio on December 20, 1903 to L. Lance and Anna (Lesh) Burlingame. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Stanford University and her doctorate from the University of Minnesota.
She was a research assistant at Stanford from 1925 to 1927, and a teaching assistant at Stanford from 1927 to 1930. She was an assistant professor at San Diego State College for Women from 1930 to 1938, and a professor of psychology at San Diego State College from 1938 to 1941. She came to the University of Idaho in 1942 and was an associate professor of psychology until her retirement in 1969.
She was active in several university organizations and community groups, including being branch and state president of the American Association of University Women, Phi Beta Kappa Society, and board member of the Latah County Historical Society. Her hobbies included gardening and photography. She died in Moscow on September 21, 1988.
The papers of Mildred Burlingame span the years 1909 to 1972, with the bulk of the material covering the years 1920 to 1968. The material includes notes on various aspects of psychology, letters from her mother and sister, and slides, negatives, and mounted photographs.
The papers were in labelled file folders when received. The correspondence was in chronological order, and the majority of the slides were in boxes or slide storage cases. Original folder headings were retained, as were the broad slide identifications. The original order of the slides was also retained.
The first series contains professional material and consists of bibliographies, typed excerpts and summaries of articles on various aspects of psychology, and notecards containing summaries of books and articles arranged by subject. Other items include Dr. Burlingame's transcript from Stanford, correspondence regarding teaching positions, and two publications of Dr. Burlingame.
The second series contains personal papers and is divided into two subseries, correspondence and slides. The correspondence consists of letters from her mother and her sister Lucille Day, with an occasional letter from her father, and other relatives. There are also, in the later years, Christmas cards with personal messages.
There are a great many slides arranged by subject. Included are Idaho scenes, slides of trips on the Snake River and Lake Chelan, California trips, vacations in British Columbia, many of the University of Idaho campus, U of I homecoming parades from 1948 to 1964, wild flowers and garden flowers, animals including her two cats, and slides of her retirement party. The 2"x2" slides were removed from the boxes in which they were kept and placed in archival slide storage pages, 20 slides to a page. The original order was maintained, and no attempt was made to bring slides from the same trip together if they were stored in separate cases. The large Rolleiflex slides were arranged by subject and placed in a small box.
Most negatives were separated by type of camera used, i.e. Practica and Rolleiflex, then arranged by year and roll number. Each negative strip is in a paper sleeve on which is written all identification. The remaining negatives, which include some early glass negatives of Stanford University, were arranged by subject.
The final items in this series are a group of black and white photographs which have been enlarged and mounted. As with the slides these are arranged by subject. A majority of the photographs are of Moscow and the Palouse region, although there are some of Mount Rushmore, Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and Waikiki Beach.
The papers of psychology professor Mildred Burlingame were donated to the University of Idaho Library by Charlotte Mohan in November 1985, with additional slides donated by the Latah County Historical Society in January 1986.
In the course of processing this material some items were discarded. These include processed checks, greeting cards without personal messages, and reprints of articles not by Dr. Burlingame. An envelope containing chips from Nez Perce arrowheads was offered to the Anthropology Department. In all the records were reduced by one cubic foot.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.