Margaret Keyes was born in Mount Vernon, Iowa and graduated from Cornell College (Mount Vernon) with a B.A. in home economics. She pursued a graduate degree at the University of Wisconsin and joined the Home Economics faculty at the University of Iowa in 1951. In 1961 she took a leave of absence from the University of Iowa to pursue a graduate program in historic preservation at Florida State University. In 1965 she completed her Ph.D., published her dissertation, Nineteenth Century Home Architecture in Iowa City, and returned to the University of Iowa. In the 1970s and 1980s she was active in Iowa's efforts to preserve and renovate its historic structures and was a member of various professional preservation organizations. Her efforts laid the groundwork for documenting many historic properties in Iowa City and elsewhere that were eventually placed on the National Register of Historic Places or the Historic American Buildings Survey. Her position at the University of Iowa enabled her to use graduate student researchers to investigate historic homes in many eastern Iowa communities. Keyes was instrumental in a project to preserve and rehabilitate Iowa's Old Capitol building in Iowa City in the mid-1970s.
From the description of Margaret N. Keyes research files on Iowa and Iowa City architectural history, ca. 1835-1993. (Iowa Sate Historical Society). WorldCat record id: 466440040
