Fenton Keyes collection

Collection — Container: Single Folder Collections - 2001 Box 14 (01.0360-01.0384), Folder: 01.0383 - Folder 1

Identifier: 01.0383

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The collection is related to Fenton Keyes who served in the U.S. Army in the China-Burma-India Theater during World War II. The collection includes a poem, photograph, and a drawing by J.C.W. Dix, the brother of Fenton Keyes's wife, Elizabeth Dix Keyes. The collection also includes a copy of a New York Times Magazine story about the Leyte Gulf from October 24, 1945, and a book review on a naval book about the war. The collection also contains a bulletin written by Fenton Keyes about his time in China during the war and his book collection.

Dates

1944-1954
Other: Date acquired: 10/01/2001
Other: Date accessioned: 2020-04-03

Creator

Keyes, Fenton, 1915-1999 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open to all researchers.

Conditions Governing Use

All requests for permission to quote, publish, broadcast or otherwise reproduce from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Associate Dean for Special Collections & Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Florida State University Libraries as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.

Biographical or Historical Information

Fenton Keyes was born January 26, 1915 in New York, N.Y. and died November 26, 1999, at age 85 in Philadelphia, PA. Keyes earned his AB in 1937 and a PhD in 1941 from Yale University before teaching sociology at Colgate University. Later, he served as a captain in the U.S. Army. He was awarded the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster. As part of his time in the Army, he served in China, specifically on the staff of General A.C. Wedemeyer in Chunking and Shanghai. Keyes was married to Elizabeth Dix Keyes (1914-2011). She was the sister of John Carle Woodruff Dix, who serviced in the U.S. Navy and fought in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Pacific Theater of Operations. After the war, Fenton taught at Skidmore College as an assistant professor of sociology and served as an assistant to the school's president, Henry T. Moor before becoming a member of college's administration from 1946-1956. Keyes was the grandson of Charles Henry Keyes, Skidmore's first president, and his father, Harold Brown Keyes, served for many years on Skidmore's board of trustees. In 1953, he was named to the newly created position of vice president of the college. He became a leader at Texas Woman's University and Coker College in Hartsville, S.C. In retirement, he wrote a biography of his grandfather titled Charles Henry Keyes: Cal Tech and Skidmore, which he published in 1990. With his wife Elizabeth, he had a son, Charles Fenton Keyes, and a daughter, Janet Keyes O'Connell.