Clara Sue Kidwell facts for kids

Clara Sue Kidwell (born July 8, 1941) is a Native American scholar, historian, and author. She is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and also has White Earth Ojibwe heritage. Many people see her as a very important person in creating and growing programs that study American Indian history and culture.

Early Life and Education

Clara Sue Kidwell was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, in 1941. She grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Clara Sue was named after her two grandmothers, and she had a very close bond with them when she was a child. Her grandmother on her father's side helped raise her. This was because her parents worked as clerks at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Kidwell learned important skills from her parents, like keeping copies of everything. She also learned to pay close attention to grammar from her high school teacher, Glady Nunn. These early lessons helped her become very detailed in her work.

College Years

In 1959, Clara Sue Kidwell finished Central High School. She then went on to study at the University of Oklahoma (OU). She earned her bachelor's degree in 1963. While she was an undergraduate student, she was part of the College Bowl Team. This led her to receive a special scholarship to study the history of science after she graduated. She continued her studies at OU, earning her master's degree in 1966. Finally, she received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma in 1970.

Career and Contributions

Clara Sue Kidwell began teaching American Indian studies in 1970. Her first teaching job was at Haskell Indian Junior College, which is now called Haskell Indian Nations University. She taught there for two years.

After Haskell, she became an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She worked at Berkeley until 1993. During her time there, she did a lot of research and wrote many important papers. She also received special fellowships from the Newberry Library and the Smithsonian Institution. In 1980, she was a visiting scholar and professor at Dartmouth College.

Working with Museums

After leaving Berkeley, Kidwell took on a new role. She became the assistant director for cultural resources at the National Museum of the American Indian. In this job, she helped move about one million different items. These items came from the George Gustav Heye's Museum of the American Indian in New York City to Washington, D.C. This was a huge task to make sure these important cultural pieces were safely moved.

Leading Native American Programs

In 1995, Kidwell returned to the University of Oklahoma. She became the director of their Native American studies program. She helped shape how students learn about Native American cultures and histories. She also contributed to the 2003 book Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium.

In 2007, Kidwell started the American Indian Center (AIC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. One of her main goals at AIC was to help Eastern tribes. Many of these tribes, like the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and Coharie Intra-tribal Council, Inc., do not have federal recognition. This means they are not officially recognized by the U.S. government for various reasons.

Under Kidwell's leadership, the AIC has been very successful. They have created more programs in North Carolina that focus on education, health, and child welfare for these state-recognized tribes. She also helped make Native history and culture more visible on the university campus. Clara Sue Kidwell retired from her role as director of AIC in June 2011.