Born in New Rochelle, N.Y., on December 15, 1908, William Nelson Fenton, became a leading scholar of the history and culture of the Haudenosaunee. Raised in New Rochelle until the age of 16, he passed his summers on the family farm in western New York state, located midway between two Seneca Indian reservations. Exposed to anthropological work, Fenton's interests were encouraged by his father and grandfather, friends to Indians there, who assembled a small collection of Indian memorabilia which was later acquired by the Museum of the American Indian.

After receiving his B.A. from Dartmouth in 1931, Fenton attended Yale for graduate study in anthropology. At the end of his first year in New Haven, the Laboratory of Anthropology at Santa Fe awarded him a scholarship for training in field archaeology on the Great Plains of Nebraska and South Dakota, where he took part in his first professional ethnological interviews. Returning to his old home in New York in 1933, Fenton embarked on what would become more than fifty years of field research on the Allegany, Cornplanter, Cattaraugus, and Tonawanda Seneca Reservations and on the Six Nations Reserve in Canada. From 1935 until he received his doctorate in 1937, Fenton also served as a community worker for the United States Indian Service, working principally on the Tonawanda Reservation.

In his first academic appointment in 1937, Fenton introduced anthropology to St. Lawrence University, though he remained for only three semesters before being called to replace J.N.B. Hewitt at the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) of the Smithsonian Institution, earning promotion to Senior Ethnologist in 1943. During the war years, he served as a Research Associate of the Ethnogeographic Board and as Secretary of the Smithsonian War Committee. While a member of the Committee on International Relations in Anthropology at the National Research Council (NRC) from 1952 to 1954, he served as the first Executive Secretary of the Division of Anthropology and Psychology. Meanwhile, he was employed as a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, and Catholic Universities, and at the University of Michigan.

In 1954, Fenton returned to New York State with his wife, Olive (1908-1986), and their three children to become Assistant Commissioner of the New York State Museum and Science Service in Albany, serving as director of the State Museum for thirteen years. In 1968, he abandoned administration and returned to teaching as Research Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Albany. In 1979, the trustees named him Distinguished Professor, and Anthony F.C. Wallace delivered the honorary lecture.

Throughout his career, Fenton's research centered on the religious ceremonies and customs of the Iroquois, epitomised by his translation (with Elizabeth Moore) of The Customs of the American Indian Compared with the Customs of Primitive Times by Father Joseph François Lafitau, his 1987 book, The False Faces of the Iroquois, and his last major work, The Great Law and the Longhouse: A political history of the Iroquois Confederacy.

Fenton received numerous awards, including the Peter Doctor Award of the Seneca Nation (1958), the Cornplanter Medal for Iroquois Research (1965), the Citizen Laureate Award of the University of Albany Foundation (1978), the Distinguished Service Award of the American Anthropological Association (1983), and an LL.D. from Hartwick College (1968). He was president of the American Folklore Society (1959-1960), the American Ethnological Society (1959), and the American Society for Ethnohistory (1961); a Board member of the American Anthropological Association; and a trustee of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation (1976-1989). He was a founder of the Conference on Iroquois Research in 1945, and a founding member of the SUNY Albany chapter of Sigma Xi. He was also a long-time member of the Phillips Fund Committee of the American Philosophical Society (1975-1991) and of the American Committee of the Permanent Council of the International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (1952-1972), as well as Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York at Albany. He passed away on June 17, 2005.

The William N. Fenton Papers (1635-1994) contain correspondence, subject files, manuscripts of published and unpublished works by Fenton, papers by colleagues, research notes, and photographs, which document Fenton's career as an anthropologist. The most recent items in the collection are letters dated 1994. Documenting both Fenton's research on the Iroquois and the evolution of Iroquois studies, the collection also includes photocopies of primary materials dating back into the seventeeth century.

The Fenton Papers focus on Haudenosaunee ("Iroquois") ethnology and political history, and include an important series of correspondence between Fenton and his Seneca consultants, Clara and Sherman Redeye and Jesse J. Cornplanter, 1933-1967, among others. Fenton also gathered works written by Cornplanter himself. Of related interest are a collection of Seneca genealogies; the extensive documentation of the protracted controversy between the Seneca Nation and the U.S. Government over the construction of the Kinzua Dam; and material concerning Fenton's controversial role in resisting early attempts at cultural repatriation waged by the Onondaga Indians in the "Great Wampum War of 1970" (restricted access; see: Fenton, "The New York State Wampum Collection: The Case for the Integrity of Cultural Treasures," APS Proceedings. 115:6, 1971).

Having been instrumental in their organization, Fenton kept a wealth of material on the Conferences on Iroquois Research, 1948-1966. Fenton's research on Iroquois ceremonial False Faces is documented by research notes, photographs, and a penultimate draft of the book manuscript, and his participation in international anthropological organizations is evidenced by the material on the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. Of special note is the journal he kept for the VIIth International Congress which met in Moscow in 1964. There is also material on the Committee on International Relations in Anthropology, 1945-1950.

Among the miscellaneous materials in the collection are copies of the original, and unpublished, Iroquois field notebooks of Alexander A. Goldenweiser, taken at the Six National Reserve in Canada, 1911-1918. Edward Sapir, who supervised Goldenweiser's research, helped Fenton recover the originals, which Goldenweiser passed to Sapir's graduate students, and ultimately to Fenton in the 1930s. The originals were sent to the National Museum of Man (now the Canadian Museum of History) during the 1970s. There is material concerning Fenton's preparation of these notebooks for publication, including a very informative introduction prepared by one of Fenton's graduate students.

The papers (60.5 linear feet) are divided into eight series:

Oversized materials follow the same series arrangement as noted above. Cross referencing to oversized material appears on the folders in the standard sized boxes. All photographs and negatives have been removed from Series I-V and placed in Series VI. Cross references appear in the original series. Reprints have been moved to the printed materials collection of the APS library. If a reprint was found as an enclosure, a photocopy of the title page was filed in its place. To retrieve reprints, consult the card catalog for printed materials. Microfiche, microfilm, and audio- and video-cassette recordings have also been removed from the collection; to retrieve those items, consult the card catalog for manuscript materials.

Physical description

60.5 linear feet

60.5 linear feet

Provenance

The Fenton Papers have been donated by William N. Fenton and family between 1982 and 2006.

Preferred citation

Cite as: William N. Fenton Papers, American Philosophical Society.

Processing information

Catalogued by Miriam Spectre and Tim Wilson, 1996. Additional materials cataloged by Brian Carpenter, 2017. (See processing note for Series VIII.)

Separated material

William N. Fenton, collector, n.d., [c.1984]. 1 audiocassette tape. Radio broadcast: "Manhattan at Large." Councilman Stanley Michaels, host. Topic: "The Future of the Museum of the American Indian." Guests: Dr. Edmund Carpenter, Anthropologist, Member Board of Trustees, Museum of the American Indian; Pamela Mann, Asst. N.Y., Attorney General; N.Y. Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell, Jr.; Randle Borshi, Deputy Commissioner, N.Y. City Dept. of Cultural Affairs.

William Fenton and David Sapir. Oct. 1, 1984. 1 VHS videocassette tape. Produced by Allan Burns. Dept. of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla. 32611.

3 green vinyl records removed from Ser. II, International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (7th : 1964 : Moscow).

13 microfiche: 9 of correspondence between Edward Sapir and Alexander A. Goldenweiser, 1911-1925; 4 of correspondence between Edward Sapir and F.W. Waugh, 1912. Appears to be from the National Museums of Canada.

3 reels of microfilm (3 copies): Jesse J. Cornplanter and Joseph Keppler correspondence, 1900-1938, from Museum of the American Indian.

1 reel of microfilm: Samuel Wharton. Facts and observations respecting the country granted to his majesty by the Six Nations (London, 1775), 170 pp.+, from the Library of Congress, 3 Mar. 1952.

1 reel of microfilm: Du Simitiere Papers (1769); Christopher Sauer material (1749), from Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Related material

There are many audio recordings donated by William Fenton, in addition to the audio in Series VII of this collection, that have been separated into their own collections. These are: Onondaga text and translation of the Gibson-Goldenweiser text of the Deganawidah epic (Mss.Rec.125), Interviews concerning the paintings of the Seneca artist Ernest Smith (Mss.Rec.126), Seneca Chanters of the Dead (Mss.Rec.127), Seneca texts relating to the Green Corn Ceremony; An origin of the False Faces (Mss.Rec.128), Seneca Chants and Ceremonies (Mss.Rec.130), Indian Language Field Recordings (Mss.Rec.138), Iroquois material (Mss.Rec.150), and The Future of the Museum of the American Indian (Mss.Rec.183). Fenton's papers are among several collections pertaining to the history, culture, and languages of the Haudenosaunee, including the papers of Elisabeth Tooker, Ely S. Parker, Frans Olbrechts, and Anthony F. C. Wallace, Paul A. W. Wallace, and Frank Speck, Floyd G. Lounsbury, George Snyderman.

Fenton's papers are among several collections pertaining to the history, culture, and languages of the Haudenosaunee.

Bibliography

• Buffalo Historical Society (Buffalo, NY).
• Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation
• New York State Museum
• Royal Ontario Museum. Division of Art and Archaeology..
• United States. Department of the Interior

• Agendas
• Field notes.
• Gelatin silver prints
• Genealogies
• Lectures
• Maps.
• Minutes
• Negatives
• Notebooks
• Sound recordings

• Anthropologists.

• Barbeau, Marius, 1883-1969
• Carpenter, Edmund, 1922-2011
• Congdon, Charles E. , (Charles Edwin), b. 1877
• Cornplanter, Edward
• Cornplanter, Jesse J.
• Deardorff, Merle H., d.1971
• Dodge, Ernest Stanley
• Du Ponceau, Peter Stephen, 1760-1844
• Fenton, William N. (William Nelson), 1908-2005
• Foster, Michael K.
• Gibson, John Hardy
• Gibson, Simeon
• Goldenweiser, Alexander, 1880-1940
• Graymont, Barbara
• Hallowell, A. Irving (Alfred Irving), 1892-1974
• Harrington, M. R. (Mark Raymond), 1882-1971
• Harris, Helen
• Herskovits, Melville J. , (Melville Jean), 1895-1963
• Hewitt, J. N. B. (John Napoleon Brinton), 1859-1937
• Hill, Cephas
• Jamieson, Sadie
• Jennings, Francis, 1918-
• Johnny John, Chauncey
• Keppler, Joseph
• Kidder, Alfred Vincent, 1885-1963
• Kurath, Gertrude Prokosch
• Lafitau, Joseph-Francois, 1681-1746
• Lévi-Strauss, Claude
• Logan, Frank
• Lounsbury, Floyd Glenn, 1914-1998
• McIlwraith, T. F. (Thomas Forsyth), 1899-
• Parker, Arthur Caswell, 1881-1955
• Redeye, Clara
• Redeye, Henry
• Redeye, Sherman
• Rockefeller, Nelson A. (Nelson Aldrich), 1908-1979
• Sapir, Edward, 1884-1939
• Snow, Jones
• Speck, Frank G. (Frank Gouldsmith), 1881-1950
• Spier, Leslie, 1893-1961
• Sturtevant, William C.
• Tooker, Elisabeth, 1927-2004
• Trigger, Bruce G.
• Wallace, Anthony F. C., 1923-2015
• Wallace, Paul A. W.
• Waugh, F. W., (Frederick Wilkerson), 1872-1924
• Wheeler-Voegelin, Erminie, 1903-1988
• White, Leslie A., 1900-1972
• White, Marian E. (Marian Emily), 1921-1975
• Wissler, Clark, 1870-1947
• Witthoft, John
• Woodbury, Hanni

• Anthropological museums and collections -- Laws and legislation
• Eagle dance
• Handsome Lake Code
• Iroquois Indians -- Games
• Iroquois Indians -- Religion
• Iroquois Indians -- Social life and customs
• Iroquois dance
• Iroquois masks
• Kinzua Dam (Pa.)
• Seneca
• Seneca Indians -- Genealogy
• Seneca Indians -- Music
• Seneca Indians -- Religion
• Seneca Indians -- Relocation
• Seneca Indians -- Social life and customs
• Seneca masks
• Wampum belts