Emma Francois
Contributing Writer
Just as there’s lore surrounding Chautauqua, there’s lore surrounding its archivist and historian Jonathan David Schmitz, who has spent most of the 21st century serving the Institution as
its keeper of records, objects and stories.
As the season winds down and Schmitz looks to stepping back from some of his responsibilities at the Institution, he will present the summer’s final installment of the Heritage Lecture Series at 3:30 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy. His talk will, fittingly, highlight the importance of recordkeeping — not without a reference to the mythological muse of history herself — titled “Clio in the Stacks: Archives Between Progress, Praxis Et alia.”
“Without history, it’s not just that you’re destined to repeat it — sometimes we’d be lucky if we could — but no, it’s more that we give up the chance for establishing common experience,” Schmitz said.
Schmitz grew up moving around frequently, with stints in Los Angeles, his birthplace, as well as Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Bloomington, Indiana; Washington D.C.; and even Germany for a year. Throughout his family’s moves, one constant remained: his love for history. From a young age, he delighted in going to the library to check out books or reenacting historical events with friends,
placing himself in the moments to try to understand them better.
By the time he was a teenager, his family had settled in Canada. He attended high school in Toronto where he lived for many years, working as director of the Record Management and Archives Department of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and teaching records management, archives and preservation at George Brown College in Toronto before interviewing at Chautauqua in 2001.
At that time, “the Archives” referred to a couple of boxes in the basement of the Smith Memorial Library. One of Schmitz’s first tasks when he assumed his role in 2002 was to find a new location for a more permanent setup. After much deliberating across the grounds, he settled on what is now the Oliver Archives Center.
“The task was immense, and Jon worked with skill, patience and his characteristic sense of humor to modernize and make accessible the treasures of Chautauqua’s past,” said Richard R. Redington, Chautauqua’s former vice president of education and planning, and the man who hired Schmitz. “To many current Chautauquans, the Archives may be invisible; they are, however, the important record and, indeed, the soul of the Institution, and Jon tended them with affection for the past and determination to inform the future.”
The archives center, which in its original geographic configuration was located off-grounds, had lived many lives — much like Schmitz himself who, among his many accomplishments, has worked as a caretaker, groundskeeper, parking attendant, bartender, housepainter, private tutor, teaching assistant and medical inspector.
The modest structure has operated as a carriage house, bindery, carpentry shop, violin and piano studios and even a rehearsal space for Chautauqua Opera before being transformed into the climate-controlled safe haven that it is today.
Schmitz first liked the building for its brick structure. It was on the edge of grounds for easy access to the gates, ideal for those coming and going for research. The building also has ground-level access on both its floors, including a reading room on the lower level.
“And it’s a good size,” Schmitz said. “You don’t want it too big because it’ll start being used for other things, but you want it to be big enough to house what you have. … Also, by not being too big, we could establish a better environmental control.”
It’s somewhat of an archivist’s dream. Schmitz has had visiting researchers from across the globe, including from the Library of Congress, comment on the “excellent” set-up, a result of the relatively small size of storage areas.
“In corporate archives, … most of your effort is usually dedicated toward survival,” Schmitz said. “And here, I didn’t find that was the case. I found the administration was committed to having its history preserved and presented. So I’ve never had to really fight that fight the way that it would be typical in most corporate settings. I always appreciated that.”
Another aspect of his job he’s enjoyed is its versatility. In his role, he works on acquisition, appraisal, arrangement, description, copyrighting, maintenance and so much more, not to mention education — through writing, lecturing and teaching or mentoring — the joys of which came up often in conversations with Schmitz and those who worked with him. His mentees have gone on to work in archives across the country, serving institutions like the Smithsonian, university libraries and even the White House.
“At the end (of their time at Chautauqua) I just tell them, the only advice I can give them is put God first, keep Him first and treat every single person you meet with respect and charity,” Schmitz said. “And don’t take them half so seriously as they take themselves.”
Schmitz is a lover of factoids — which is rather a sneaky term, as he will tell you, colloquially thought to mean something like a fun fact but really meaning an untruth or uncertain truth; a lie or saying so often repeated it becomes a story in of itself. And anyway, as he’ll discuss in his talk, what really is, and who decides, a fact? And what’s its relationship to truth?
“Facts in the end are not unquestionable kernels of truth,” Schmitz said. “What they are, are sort of prescriptions for how an experience can be represented or how an event can be presented.”
Still, there are many factoids — or perhaps facts is more truthful here — that Schmitz can rattle about the Archives: how the building has twice as many fake windows as real ones; how the records span nearly 600 years, with the oldest specimen being the Koberger Bible from 1501; or how many of the books in the Reading Room were actually bound in the very same building, years before during its spell as a bindery.
In his commitment to facts — not factoids — he dispelled and corrected many of our favorite go-to Chautauqua sayings, noted Sherra Babcock, former vice president and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education, who worked with Schmitz from 2007 until her retirement in 2017.
“I know that Chautauqua’s history would not be the same without him,” Babcock said. “He delighted in researching, expanding,and disputing some of the ‘legends’ about Chautauqua.”
For example, Babcock said, Schmitz discovered a book club based in Peoria, Illinois, that was founded the same year as the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle — but three weeks earlier, making it the nation’s oldest book club, prompting the CLSC to change its slogan to the nation’s oldest “continuous” book circle.
“The important thing is to try to take Chautauqua and make it connect into American history,” Schmitz said. “You can only do that if you are very honest about it.”
Among other favorite mythbusters (though he doesn’t like that phrase, and anyway, by his account, he’s busted as many myths as he’s uncovered), Schmitz gathered scientific evidence against the common adage that we can thank Chautauqua’s bat population for our few mosquitos. He also contradicted the common boast that nine American presidents have spoken at Chautauqua, for there is no proof that Ulysses S. Grant uttered a single word. And lastly, getting at the heart of what Chautauqua means, Schmitz complicated the belief that the word “Chautauqua” came from a Seneca term for “two bags tied in the middle,” or even
“two moccasins tied together,” but instead, perhaps, the Cherokee terminology for “place from which fish are taken.”
Beyond that, Schmitz embodies and champions what archives mean and do.
“Jon taught me that the Archives is not a building that stores things,” Babcock said. “The Archives are people who research history, who accept and describe historical artifacts, who present programs and documents that preserve history and who maintain the equipment and conditions to make those items available to other historians and interested people.”
Matt Ewalt, the former Daily editor who served as vice president and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education from 2018 to 2023, echoed the sentiments of his predecessor.
“As staff, board and community wrestle with what Chautauqua is and what it should be in a rapidly changing world, Jon has been a steady, indispensable guide, drawing on deep institutional memory,” Ewalt said. “Every conversation with him not only challenged my assumptions but also strengthened my love for Chautauqua and deepened my appreciation of its place in the world. Chautauqua is stronger, more resilient, and more impactful because of Jon’s wisdom and work.”
Ewalt and Schmitz share a birthday; for many years, so the lore goes, they kept a tradition of raising a glass together in celebration.
“(Working with Schmitz was) always fun, and (you were) always enjoying his sense of humor,” Babcock said. “Also he knows good bourbon — after work, of course.”
“He appreciates nourishment,” said George Cooper, former archives reporter and “The Daily Record” columnist for the Daily, “and he appreciates taste in something that is well done, something that is prepared with love.”
According to Cooper, Schmitz is known for making great spaghetti, complete with homemade sauce, a heartfelt meal he’d even stir up for visiting researchers, served right in the comforts of his own home.
“It makes me cry — when I got cancer, it was his prayers I was thankful for,” Cooper said of his longtime friend. “When, you know, people say, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ I’d go, ‘I don’t care.’ When Jon said it, I knew it was OK. He’s so devoted. If there was anyone who I wanted to pray for me, it’s him.”
He brings the same devotion, Cooper said, to the Archives.
“He’s so devoted to the artifacts themselves,” Cooper said, “not necessarily what they say. He has his own view, but he’s there so that someone can come in the door and look at them and appreciate them.”
Schmitz embraces the human reality of differing opinions in a time when fruitful debate can seem like a lost art.
“He brings to life the Archives for people who may not have ever thought that archives were anything important,” Cooper said. “He matches that humility of the artifact with his own.”
One of the important missions over his decades with Chautauqua has been to increase its awareness in the national memory. He also oversaw a massive organization, preservation and digitization campaign. In his tenure, the bulk of the Archive’s photographs have been made accessible online, as well as the newspapers from 1876 to 2006 and the CLSC’s magazine, all within a limited budget. His Heritage Lecture Series, too, went digital during the pandemic, becoming some of the most streamed videos on CHQ Assembly.
In addition to curating and accumulating, a large part of Schmitz’s job is editing; the art, or trade, of knowing what not to keep — for if you keep too much, and certainly if you keep everything, you risk making the records inaccessible.
“Sometimes people just think history is about old,” Schmitz said, “and if it’s old, you’ve got to keep it. Archives do find it necessary to get rid of things. You can’t keep everything.”
Such was the case with the rebuilding of the Amphitheater, which Schmitz said was one of the most “interesting” projects he worked on while serving Chautauqua. He describes the endeavor as a “historical rebuild,” preserving historical accuracy as much as possible while enshrining the metaphysical aspects that make the Amp, the Amp. In other words, keeping true to its look, feel and function.
“Many people have the idea that preservation is always what we call ‘fabric preservation,’ where it’s the stuff itself,” Schmitz said. For example, he said, in preserving the Colosseum, it’s the very stones that matter, the very fabric. In the case of the Amp, as Schmitz explained, very little of the original fabric was still in place. Much of the structure had been redone in the last 50 years, and the existing structure wasn’t even the “original” Amp. What’s important is the gathering place, the point of assembly.
“I think the Amphitheater is the most important building on the grounds,” Schmitz said. “You lose the Amphitheater, I think you lose Chautauqua.”
With such high stakes, rebuilding the Amp with historical accuracy and communicating the project’s necessity to opposing Chautauquans proved a challenge, but a rewarding one.
“We were particularly thankful to Jon for recognizing what the Amp actually is, which is a canvas upon which art and words appear rather than the main character itself,” said Jordan Steves, another former Daily editor and the current Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education. “He helped frame for us a way to think about the Amp as a platform upon which things happen, versus the thing itself.”
It’s Schmitz’s ability to take the objects for what they are, handled with care but not a blinding preciousness or oversentimentality. Indeed, one of the largest tasks Chautauqua has trusted Schmitz with all these years is knowing what to throw away, to prune so that the buds may shine.
“Jon helped us realize that what happens in the venues is more important than the venues themselves,” Steves said. “I still take that lesson and apply it to my work today.”
While this will be the last installment of the Heritage Lecture Series — at least for the short-term, as the season concludes and Chautauqua strives for financial sustainability — Schmitz will continue to safeguard and serve the Archives as a wealth of knowledge and passion. He also plans to continue work on a book based on the Chautauqua pamphlet series he’s published over the years.
“The truth of it is, I have no desire to retire, I have no desire to grow old,” he said. “It’s probably a good thing I do, … but that’s how one feels.”
When asked why archives are important to a community like Chautauqua, Schmitz said that history is its identity: “You can’t understand Chautauqua without looking at its history, even if you try to match it with other existing institutions.”
“The thing that I love most about the way Jon talks about Chautauqua is when I’m with groups where he is presenting, and they don’t know Chautauqua,” Steves said, “he tells them the most miraculous thing about Chautauqua is that it’s still here.”
The theme of resilient communion is crucial to understanding Schmitz’s impact as a historian and Chautauqua’s role in history — present day included.
“One of the features of Chautauqua that I hope is never lost,” Schmitz said, “is the common experience. People come to one place, sit next to each other, have the same experience. That is more important than presenting all sides. You’ll never present all sides. Even the way one defines the different sides, we’ll never agree on. What matters is not a balanced platform, but a big tent.”
