A Yale-educated ethnographer, William Fenton devoted most of his career to study of the Haudenosaunee. Receiving his doctorate in 1937, Fenton worked with the Bureau of American Ethnology for a number of years before becoming Director of the New York State Museum and professor at SUNY Albany. The Fenton Papers covers all aspects of William Fenton's professional life, documenting his varied positions as community worker for the New York Agency of the U.S. Indian Service, 1935-1937 (accounts, reports, correspondence); associate anthropologist and senior ethnologist in the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1939-1951 (includes notebooks, letters from the field); Executive Secretary of Anthropology and Psychology, National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, 1952-1954; and Assistant Commissioner, New York State Museum and Science Service, 1954-1968.