Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
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Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
KEANE, James J.
KEANE, James J. (Joliet, IL, Aug. 25, 1857--Dubuque, IA, Aug. 2, 1929). Archbishop. Keane came to Dubuque in 1911 as the successor to Archbishop John J. KEANE and was formally installed on September 13, 1911. Having been a professor at St. Thomas Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, Keane took an immediate interest in COLUMBIA COLLEGE that then had an enrollment of 330 and a staff of 20.
During his eighteen years, Keane saw the college grow to an enrollment of seven hundred, excluding enrollment in summer school courses, with a faculty of forty-eight. Columbia became only one of seven Catholic educational institutions in the nation to boast an endowment fund of one million dollars or more. The fund was begun in 1917 at the archbishop's direction, and his personal efforts led to a $200,000 donation from the Rockefeller Foundation. Locally he founded the WITNESS.
In November 1911, Archbishop Keane finalized the purchase of the Frank D. STOUT home at 11th and Locust for the archdiocese. The residence, purchased for a reported $23,000 to $25,000, had been owned for nearly two years by Joseph J. NAGLE who had attempted to find a buyer.
A figure of national prominence, Keane held membership in the Irish Peace Commission of 1920 that was concerned with the strife between Ireland and England. He was one of the principal speakers at the 1926 World's Alliance for international Friendship.
