Early Life and Education
Kean was born in New York City to a long line of New Jersey politicians. His mother was Elizabeth (Howard) and his father, Robert Kean, was a U.S. Representative. His grandfather Hamilton Fish Kean and great-uncle John Kean both served as U.S. Senators. His second great-uncle was Hamilton Fish, a U.S. Senator, governor of New York, and Secretary of State. Kean's relative, William Livingston, was a delegate to the Continental Congress and the first governor of New Jersey.
Kean was initially educated at The Potomac School in Washington, D.C. When he reached the fourth grade, he entered St. Albans School. In 1946, at the age of eleven, his parents then enrolled him at St. Mark's School in Southborough, Massachusetts, the alma mater of his father and two older brothers.
After graduating from St. Mark's, he attended Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, where he received his B.A. in history in 1957 and participated in the American Whig-Cliosophic Society. After working on his father's unsuccessful senatorial campaign, and as a history teacher for three years at St. Mark's School, Kean attended Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City and earned his M.A. in history.
Kean was a longtime resident of Livingston, New Jersey.
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