Kidd, Kenneth E.

Professor Kenneth E. Kidd was born July 21, 1906 at Barrie, Ontario as the son of D. Ferguson Kidd and Florence May Jebb. He was educated at Victoria College at the University of Toronto (B.A. 1931 and M.A. 1937). He also attended the University of Chicago from 1939 to 1940. He married Martha Ann Maurer in October, 1943. In 1935 he joined the Ethnology Department of the Royal Ontario Museum where he worked until 1981 in various positions, starting as an assistant and ending as Curator of Ethnology. He directed the excavation at Ste. Marie I, the site of a 17th century Jesuit Mission near Midland, Ontario, which was the first excavation of a historical site using modern techniques, in North America. In 1964, Kidd joined Trent University as a professor of Anthropology and in the following year he established and chaired the Native Studies Program which was the first of its kind in Canada. He retired from Trent University in 1972, and in 1973, Professor Kidd was named Professor Emeritus of Anthropology. Throughout his career, Professor Kidd was honoured with many awards. Some of these awards include the Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, 1951-52; the Cornplanter Medal, 1970; Award for Eminent Service, Trent University, 1983 (See the Trent Fortnightly Volume 13, Number 21, Thursday, May 19, 1983. Trent University Archives Reading Room); J.C. Harrington Medal, Society for Historical Archaeology, 1985; and an Honorary Degree from Trent University, 1990. He published "Canadians Long Ago" and with Selwyn Dewdney published "Indian Rockpaintings of the Great Lakes". Professor Kenneth E. Kidd died February 26, 1994, at the age of eighty-eight in Peterborough, Ontario.