Jennie Keith

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology

Jennie Keith is a leading authority on aging. She is co-author of The Aging Experience: Diversity and Commonality Across Cultures (Sage Publications, 1994), which presents findings of a decade-long cross-cultural study of growing old in the United States and several other countries. Because of the value this society places on independence, and because care for the elderly often emphasizes institutionalization over community and home settings, Keith finds that older people in America face a unique set of challenges. Among several dozen other books and articles, she is the author of Old People, New Lives: Community Creation in a Retirement Residence (University of Chicago, 1977). A 1964 Pomona College graduate, Keith received her Ph. D. from Northwestern University in 1968. In 1990, she was named Swarthmore's Centennial Professor of Anthropology.