creator:

Schwieder, Dorothy Hubbard (1933- )

title:

Papers

dates:

1971-2001

extent:

2.10 linear feet (three document boxes and two shoe boxes)

collection number:

RS 13/12/54

 repository:

University Archives, Special Collections Department, Iowa State University.

access:

Open for research

publication rights:

Consult Head, Special Collections Department

preferred citation:

Dorothy Schwieder Papers, RS 13/12/54, Special Collections Department, Iowa State University Library.

 Biographical note

 
Dorothy Hubbard Schwieder was born in Presho, South Dakota as the ninth of ten children, on November 28, 1933. She received her B.A. (1955) from Dakota Wesleyan University in psychology and history. There, she studied history under George McGovern, later a United States Senator and presidential candidate.  Schwieder began her graduate work in 1964, and received her M.A. (1968) from Iowa State University in history, and her PhD. (1981) from the University of Iowa, also in history. Her primary research was in the history of Iowa, touched off by an interest in Iowa’s Amish communities.  

Schweieder began her teaching career in 1960 as a part-time instructor at Dakota Wesleyan, and in 1966, she became a part-time instructor at Iowa State University.  During the 1970s, Schwieder revived scholarly work on Iowa history though her publications and presentations on the subject. She also developed a popular course on Iowa history, the first of its kind at Iowa State University. In 1981, she became an assistant professor in the Department of History at Iowa State, and was promoted to full professor in 1988. Schwieder retired from ISU in 2001.  

Schwieder’s publications include numerous articles and the following books (not an exhaustive list): Iowa’s Coal Mining Heritage (1973), A Peculiar People: Iowa’s Old Order Amish (1975), Black Diamonds: Life and Work in Iowa’s Coal Mining Community (1983), Seventy-five Years of Service: Cooperative Extension in Iowa (1992), Iowa: the Middle Land (1996), and Growing Up With the Town: Family and Community on the Great Plains (2002).  

Dorothy Schwieder is married to Elmer Schwieder, with whom she had two children, Diane Schwieder Risius and David Schwieder.

 Collection Description

 
This is primarily a collection of materials related to two oral history projects. The first is the history of the Iowa State Cooperative Extension Service, which provided material for her book, Seventy-five Years of Service: Cooperative Extension in Iowa (1992). The second oral history project was done for the documentary film, “The Last Pony Mine.”

 Materials for the history of the Extension Service include transcripts, release forms, and cassette tapes of interviews, conducted by Dorothy Schwieder and Tom Morain from 1987 to 1991. Materials for “The Last Pony Mine,” include magnetic tapes (7 inch and 5 inch reels) of interviews collected in the early 1970s. Schwieder’s oral histories of coal miners at the New Gladstone coal mine, in Appanoose County, Iowa, formed the basis for the award-winning 1973 documentary “The Last Pony Mine.” The documentary depicted a day in the life of coalminers at New Gladstone, which was one of the last advancing longwall mines that used ponies for underground haulage. The film won the Gold Camera Award at the U.S. Industrial Film Festival in 1973, and the Cine Golden Eagle Award. A VHS copy of this film is available in the Parks Library Media Collection.

This collection also includes a small number of news clippings, manuscripts, and articles written by or about Schwieder.

Organization

 
The collection is arranged alphabetically. Transcripts and audiocassette tapes are also listed alphabetically according to the last name of the interview subject or the title on the tape label (with the exception of the magnetic tapes in Box 5, which are organized numerically). Many of the cassettes and all of the magnetic tape reels do not have labels directly on them, but are in labeled cases. Release forms are located with transcripts.