Butler County, Iowa
Butler County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Iowa. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 14,334. Its county seat is Allison, Iowa, Allison. The county was organized in 1854 and na ...
– November 16, 1969,
New Brunswick, New Jersey
New Brunswick is a city (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. was a geologist,
paleontologist
Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...
historian of science
The history of science covers the development of science from ancient history, ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural science, natural, social science, social, and formal science, formal. Pr ...
.
Biography
Fenton was the author and illustrator of numerous books on geology and paleontology for a general audience. He published extensively in the field of paleontology in both the professional literature and in popular journals. He was an associate editor of the ''
American Midland Naturalist
''The American Midland Naturalist'' was a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering natural history. It was established in 1909 by Julius Nieuwland and was published by the University of Notre Dame. According to the ''Journal Citation Re ...
'' from 1923 to 1960, expanding the coverage of the journal into the arena of paleontology.
As an undergraduate in geology at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
Fenton met and married fellow undergraduate, Mildred Adams. (Many of his later books were written with his wife, as
Mildred Adams Fenton
Mildred Adams Fenton (November 14, 1899 – December 7, 1995) trained in paleontology and geology at the University of Iowa. She coauthored dozens of general science books with her husband, Carroll Lane Fenton, including ''Records of Evolution' ...
). He received his Bachelor of Science in 1921, then his Doctor of Philosophy in 1926.
Fenton was a critic of
creationism
Creationism is the faith, religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of Creation myth, divine creation, and is often Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific.#Gunn 2004, Gun ...
and documented the evidence for
evolution
Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...
* ''A History of Evolution'' (Little Blue Book No. 321) (1922)
*''Darwin as a Naturalist'' (Little Blue Book No. 567) (1924)
''Darwin and the Theory of Evolution'' (Little Blue Book No. 568) (1924)
* ''Haeckel's Monistic Philosophy'' (Little Blue Book No. 599) (1924)
* ''The Evidence for Evolution'' (Little Blue Book No. 694) (1924)
* ''Embryology and its Evidence for Evolution''. (Little blue book No. 695) (1924)
* ''The Fitness of Life'' (Little Blue Book No. 799) (1925)
* ''Life Among the Apes and Monkeys'' (Little Blue Book No. 827) (1925)
* ''The World of Fossils'' (1933)
* ''Holiday Shore'' (written by Edith M. Patch with illustrations by Fenton) (1935)
* ''Life Long Ago: The Story of Fossils'' (1937)
* ''Our Amazing Earth'' (1938)
* ''The Rock Book'' (with Mildred Adams Fenton) (1940; updated 2003, with new material by Thomas H. Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich)
* ''Earth's Adventures: The Story of Geology for Young People'' (1942)
* ''Mountains'' (with Mildred Adams Fenton) (1942)
* ''Our Living World'' (1943)
* ''The Land We Live On'' (with Mildred Adams Fenton) (1944)
* ''The Story of the Great Geologists'' (with Mildred Adams Fenton) (1945)
* ''Wild Folk at the Pond'' (1948); juv
* ''Worlds in the Sky'' (with Mildred Adams Fenton) (1950)
* ''Rocks and Their Stories'' (with Mildred Adams Fenton) (1951)
* ''Giants of Geology'' (1952)
* ''Wild Folk in the Woods'' (1952); juv
* ''Riches from the Earth'' (with Mildred Adams Fenton) (1953); juv
* ''Our Changing Weather'' (1954)
* ''Prehistoric World'' (1954; 1957)
* ''Plants That Feed Us'' (with Herminie B. Kitchen) (1956)
* ''The Fossil Book'' (with Mildred Adams Fenton) (1958)
* ''Wild Folk in the Desert'' (1958); juv
* ''Prehistoric Zoo'' (1959); juv
* ''Wild Folk at the Seashore'' (1959); juv
* ''Reptiles and Their World'' (1961)
* ''In Prehistoric Seas'' (with Mildred Adams Fenton) (1962); juv
* ''Birds We Live With'' (with Mildred Adams Fenton) (1963); juv
* ''The Moon for Young Explorers'' (with Mildred Adams Fenton) (1963)
* ''Tales Told by Fossils'' (1966)
* ''Animals That Help Us: The Story of Domestic Animals'' (1973)