Dorothy Schwieder Prize

The Dorothy Schwieder Prize is awarded annually for the best article on Midwestern history published during the previous calendar year. Schwieder was the first female professor of history at Iowa State University and the author of numerous books about Iowa, including Iowa: The Middle Land (1996). All articles on Midwestern history that were published in peer-reviewed journals are eligible for the prize.

The winner of the 2025 Schwieder Prize is Camden Burd, for “In Search for a Postextractive Future: Ruin, Recreation, and Militarism in the Upper Midwest,” Agricultural History vol. 99, no. 4 (November 2025): 663-680.

What happens when an extractive mono-economy collapses? In this well-written and provocative essay, Cameron Burd invites the reader to consider a postextractive landscape, as boosters and promoters in Upper Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula debated what kind of economic activity would replace copper mining in the 1950s and 1960s. Burd provides a detailed example of how community members attempted to reclaim and repurpose abandoned mines for a larger national agenda that included civil defense as well as potential sites for nuclear missiles. The remote location and lack of infrastructure, however, made converting the mines into shelters for people, industry, and military installations extremely difficult and unlikely, despite the labors of local promoters. Burd’s study of a portion of the Upper Peninsula contributes to midwestern, rural, and Cold War historiographies by examining how Midwesterners saw opportunities for local growth and development within major geopolitical developments that were well beyond the scope of their personal and community interests.

PAST RECIPIENTS

2024 - Jenny Barker Devine, “‘Protection for All Citizens:’ Civil Defense and the Problem of Evacuating Missouri’s Urban Centers during the Cold War, 1950–1970,” Missouri Historical Review 118, no. 3 (2024): 169-190.

2023 - Donna Doan Anderson - "Acceptance for Admission: Administrations of Japanese American Relocation and the Midwestern University," American Studies Special Issue "Unsettling Global Midwests" Vol. 62, Issue 3, Fall 2023.

Photo by Paul D. Sorensen on Flickr