Spotlight on Women
Kimberly Schmidt, one of Greenbelt’s newer residents, has dedicated her professional career to telling the stories of marginalized women. As a retired professor of history from Eastern Mennonite University, Schmidt has focused her research on the social history of Mennonite and Amish women, as well as women’s histories of the Southern Cheyenne Tribe. It is the latter which serves as the basis of Schmidt’s historical fiction novel, Magpie’s Blanket, published in 2016.
Born in Indonesia, Schmidt was raised in a Mennonite family in Kansas. Becoming a professor of history was not always her professional goal. In fact, after graduating from the small Mennonite college in Kansas that her great-grandfather helped found, her intention was to pursue a master’s degree then lobby for civil rights. This she did for a time during her post-college stint in Washington, D.C.
Schmidt later pursued her graduate work at New York’s Binghamton University, where she found common causes with her fellow students at the university’s then-unique programs focused on organized labor, African American and women’s history. It was pursuing her Ph.D. and writing her dissertation that brought her back to studying Mennonite life, now through an academic lens.
Her motivation came after reading celebrated historian Richard Hofstadter’s depiction of agrarian Midwest settlements as made up of anti-intellectual renegades. Knowing better, Schmidt wanted to correct this narrative. This started her down both an academic and activist career path that has focused on and advocated for highlighting important female narratives that had been lost, ignored or misrepresented.
Illuminating the female perspective is somewhat of a new phenomenon. It is only within the last few decades that stories from historically marginalized groups such as women, indigenous cultures and others have gained more attention. While most narratives throughout history have been told through the perspective of white men, Schmidt says that the social movements of the 1960s started a much-needed paradigm shift.
The current political climate is polarizing and people are competing for narrative dominance, Schmidt said. Many still want to hold onto the strong, patriarchal individualist storyline that has dominated much of history. Dominant accounts are starting to show some cracks, she says, and it’s becoming increasingly hard to lock out other previously marginalized narratives.
Figuring out how to respond to these changes is not easy, Schmidt notes. She believes the Southern Cheyenne Tribe has it right when it comes to reliance on truth and reconciliation to address conflicts. Ultimately, we must learn to heal as a society, she says, “[but] there can be no healing without truth.” Until this happens, conflict will continue. Yet to hear these truths, one must listen.
Schmidt and other historians are integral in filling in the historical narrative gaps, particularly for the voices and stories that have yet to be heard. Listening to the sources without an agenda and knowing that whatever percolates up in the story is critical to the integrity of such work. This was particularly important when Schmidt was invited by a Cheyenne Peace Chief to write a history of the Southern Cheyenne women, a topic she was not then well-informed about and nervous to undertake. She attributes its success to listening to the stories and to the highly collaborative nature of the project.
The importance of community and the collective is a theme threaded throughout Schmidt’s research. It is the same thread that brought her to Greenbelt. Having lived and raised her family in Hyattsville, Schmidt says that moving to Greenbelt was an obvious choice. Initially attracted by Old Greenbelt’s recreational amenities, Schmidt ultimately relocated for its community-focused living and strong social networks.
Much like the groups that have been the focus of her research for decades, Schmidt also knows the importance of kinship and community and believes that social networks are stronger in places like Greenbelt. Ultimately this is a place that helps her “live her values,” she says.
Now retired from the classroom, Schmidt can more easily pursue her gardening passion and other hobbies. Yet she continues to travel for the research that interests her, still driven to capture the stories and voices that represent a more inclusive identity in this country.
“History is memory and memory is identity-forming. It’s important to be inclusive and include a plurality of narratives, a plurality of voices,” she says.
This is why she believes budding historians shouldn’t be deterred. There are plenty of ways to parlay one’s love of history into a career, she advises, history being one of the easier liberal arts disciplines to transition into the professional world. Aside from academia and activism, there will always be a need in museums, interpretive sites, national parks, small museums and classrooms across the country, she says.
Ultimately, there will always be stories to tell and the need for people following behind Schmidt and her colleagues to tell them.