The CAS Library received 32 boxes containing a lifetime of materials accrued by William L. Keaton, an alumnus and supporter of the Summer School. The collection spans his personal and professional life, including years of work counseling alcoholics at Hurley Medical Center in Michigan and the subsequent creation of his own non-profit organization. While this is the area that is of most interest to the CAS Library, much of Bill Keaton’s life is documented. All biographic information is currently being rehoused, and the librarians working on the collection were able to form an idea of the life that Mr. Keaton led.
Born on March 3, 1916, Bill grew up in the South at a time when schools were still segregated and the school bus would not pick up African American students. Despite this tremendous barrier, Bill graduated from North Carolina Central University. After graduation, he became employed at a factory in Detroit. He left this position, taking a significant pay cut, to teach at Alabama State College in 1950 (then called Alabama State College for Negroes).
Bill stayed in this position for four years before becoming a public health education consultant for the Division of Alcoholic Studies and Rehabilitation at the Pennsylvania State Department of Health. In 1957, he became the Program Coordinator for Alcoholism Programs at Hurley Hospital (now Hurley Medical Center) in Michigan. After a year of service, he was promoted to the Chief Alcoholism Therapist and stayed in this position until 1976. Mr. Keaton established Insight, Inc. in 1967, William L. Keaton and Associates in 1971, and Insight International, Inc. in 1974. After a lengthy career, Bill passed away on January 1, 2004.
UPDATE from 2018: The William Keaton Papers are now located in the Rutgers University Libraries Annex under A81B03 to A81D08. Download documentation on processing from 2011.
—This article was published in the May 2011 issue of the CAS Information Services Newsletter, updated by J. H. Ward, 2/25/2021