Fenton was born William Nelson Fenton in New Rochelle, New York, in 1908. The Fenton family had had interactions with the Seneca people since the 1860s. He grew up in the west of See more

Fenton served as President of a number of academic societies: the American Folklore Society (1959-1960), the American Ethnological Society (1959), and the American Society … See more

• George Heron
• Dean R. Snow, known archeologist of the Iroquois Indian nations and other indigenous peoples … See more

After becoming senior ethnologist at the Smithsonian Institution in the 1950s, and then serving as executive secretary for anthropology and psychology at the National Research Council, he went to work at the New York State Museum at Albany in 1954. … See more

Fenton wrote extensively on Iroquois ethnology, historiography, the history of anthropology, and museum anthropology for several decades. Some of his works include:
• Fenton, William N (1936). An outline of Seneca … See more

• William Fenton interview, Oral History Collection — University of Florida See more