[1] During World War II, he worked with his mentor Harold Foote Gosnell at the Bureau of the Budget.
According to Chandler Davidson, "When Southern Politics in State and Nation was published in 1949, Key's reputation...was established beyond question.
The book was magisterial, a brilliant sweeping survey of eleven southern states that destroyed once and for all the myth of the 'solid South'".
He pioneered the study of critical elections and served as president of the American Political Science Association in 1958–59.
After continuing her education at Bryn Mawr College, she received a Doctorate in Political Science from the University of Illinois, where she was a Carnegie Fellow in International Law, in 1925; her dissertation examined The Effect of Changes of Sovereignty on Nationality.
She then worked at the University of Chicago in the Political Science Department, where she met her future husband, then a graduate student.
Her publications include The Reorganization of State Government in Nebraska (NE Legislative Reference Bureau, 1922), The Effect of Changes of Sovereignty on Nationality (Urbana, IL, 1926) (based on her dissertation), The Law of Citizenship in the United States (University of Chicago Press, 1934), and The Administration of Canadian Conditional Grants (Public Administration Service, 1938).