Dorothy Schwieder (1933–2014)

Dorothy Schwieder, née Hubbard, was born and raised in Presho, South Dakota, the ninth of her family's 10 children. She received her B.A. in psychology and history from Dakota Wesleyan University in 1954, and began graduate studies at Iowa State University in 1964, completing her M.A. in 1968. In 1955, she married Elmer Schwieder, a professor of sociology at Iowa State, with whom she had two children. Dr. Scwieder got her doctoral degree in history from the University of Iowa in 1981. She joined the faculty of Dakota Wesleyan University as a part-time instructor in 1960, and then became a part-time professor at Iowa State in 1966. She became the first female professor in the university's Department of History. Dr. Schwieder's research and teaching focused on the history of Iowa, American women, and the Midwest. Her books included 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), Iowa: the Middle Land (1996), and Growing Up With the Town: Family and Community on the Great Plains (2002). She retired in 2001 and was named University Professor Emerita.