[2][5] Beginning in 1919, White was founding director of the Merrill-Palmer Institute in Detroit,[5] a position she held for 27 years, until her retirement in 1947.

[11] During the 1930s, she chaired the National Advisory Committee on Emergency Nursery Schools, a federal relief program to quickly expand access to early childhood education.

She was also involved as an advisor with the Child Study Association of America, International Federation of Home and School, the Agricultural Missions Foundation, and the National Conference on Family Relations.

[2] White lived with her older sister Leila for most of her life, and helped to raise her brother's sons.

[8] In 2013, she was named alongside Henry Ford, George W. Romney, and five other notable people, as one of the "Eight great, late state leaders we'd like to have back", an opinion feature in the Detroit Free Press, with the comment "who better to revamp the system than the woman who developed much of it?