Isaac Stockton Keith Axson

Stockton Axson, university professor, the son of Samuel Edward and Margaret (Hoyt) Axson, was born in Rome, Georgia, on June 6, 1867. He attended Wesleyan University (Connecticut), where he received a B.A. (1890), an M.A. (1892), and an LHD (1914). He also attended Johns Hopkins University and Knox College before becoming a teacher of English at the University of Vermont in 1892. He was staff lecturer for the American Society for University Extension from 1894 to 1896, taught at Adelphi College in Brooklyn from 1896 to 1899, and from 1899 to 1914 was professor of English at Princeton University. Axson moved to Texas to teach at Rice Institute (now Rice University) in 1913. During his career he published numerous lectures and reviews. He also took an interest in government affairs through the influence of his brother-in-law President Woodrow Wilson. From 1917 to 1919 he was national secretary of the American Red Cross. He returned to Rice at the end of World War I and continued to teach there until his death, on February 26, 1935.