Five questions with ... Kim Kenney, who heads the McKinley Museum

Kim Kenney moved to Canton in October 2001, with her late husband Christopher Kenney, to take the position of curator at the Wm. McKinley Presidential Library & Museum.

She was promoted to executive director in 2019. She said her favorite part of the job as curator was creating temporary exhibitions in the Keller Gallery.

"So I decided to keep doing that in my new job," Kenney said. "It’s pretty chaotic at times, but I like to stay busy, so it works. I am originally from central New York, and no, I don’t have an accent. Not all New Yorkers sound like we grew up in Brooklyn. I went to high school at Rome Free Academy in Rome, New York. I graduated from Wells College in Aurora, New York, where I majored in history and minored in creative writing. I have a master’s degree in history museum studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Cooperstown, New York. Yes, I used to live in baseball town, and now I live in football town!"

She has wanted to be an author for as long as she can remember.

"A lot of my job involves writing — grant proposals, exhibition labels, press releases, etc," Kenney said. "It was a dream come true when I wrote my first book, 'Canton: A Journey Through Time' in 2003. Every time I write a book, I say, 'This is the last one.' But it’s so addicting. And so I just finished my ninth manuscript, 'Exploring the American Presidency through 50 Historic Treasures,' which comes out in March 2023. 

"This was no easy task. For President McKinley, I chose a small bank that was used to collect donations for the McKinley National Memorial. I used that artifact to tell the story of how McKinley’s assassination led to the formalization of the Secret Service, after three presidents were killed in 36 years."

Kenney lives in Canton with her wife Karen, three stepchildren, two cats Doodle and KitKat, and a leopard gecko named Yoshi.

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Would you describe your favorite things about the McKinley Presidential Library & Museum?

Our strength is that we truly have something for everyone. I love that we have such a wide variety of exhibitions and collections, in both science and history, which allows us to appeal to all different kinds of interests.

Personally, my favorite part of our collection is women’s clothing. We have hundreds of dresses ranging from the 1860s to the 1980s. I usually try to find a way to include a dress or two in every Keller Gallery exhibition that I create.

Another favorite is Ida McKinley’s diamond tiara, which we bought back from the TV show Pawn Stars through a crowdfunding campaign in 2014. It is on display in the McKinley Gallery.

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Have you always had an interest in history?

I had an amazing American history teacher in high school, whom I credit with giving me a love of history.

We didn’t memorize names, dates, and places. We talked about how everything fits together, which makes history come alive. When it came time to declare a major in college, history was a natural choice for me.

I knew that I didn’t want to be a teacher or a lawyer, the two most common paths for history majors, so I had to figure out how to transform my passion into a career. I did an internship at my hometown historical society in Rome, New York, and I was hooked.

I spent the rest of my college years doing everything I could to make me a successful candidate at the Cooperstown Graduate Program, where I earned my master of arts degree in history museum studies.

I love telling stories, and essentially that’s all history is. Historians tell stories that happen to be true.

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You are also a successful published author with several books focused on Stark County. What about the county inspires you to write about it?

This area has such a rich history. It seems like there are endless ways that I can approach the story of Canton and Stark County to write something interesting about our past.

Canton was home to a U.S. president, and only a few communities can claim that, but this region was also home to so many industries that have had a national impact.

I try to approach local history by connecting it to people’s lives. For example, "Stark County Food," which I co-authored with Barb Abbott of Canton Food Tours, explores something we all have in common — eating!

My most recent book, "Murder in Stark County," digs into the darker side of our history, highlighting eight murders between 1833 and 1906, including the murder of President McKinley’s brother-in-law George Saxton.

Would you share a few of your favorite historical sites you like to visit?

Many of my vacations have been planned around visiting historic sites and museums.

I absolutely loved the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum in Springfield, Illinois. Their new museum is mostly realistic, life-sized recreations of scenes from Lincoln’s life that really make his story come alive.

There was a very powerful slave auction scene where a husband, wife and child were being sold and separated. Lincoln spent some time in the South as a young man, and the exhibition suggested that he could have witnessed something like this.

I also loved the cabinet meeting where they were hashing out the details of the Emancipation Proclamation. Even though the figures were static, you could tell from the looks on their faces who was for and against the idea, and it felt like you had stumbled into a very heated argument.

That visit inspired me to replicate something like that for President McKinley’s life in an expanded permanent exhibition someday. Some of my other favorite sites include Gettysburg, The Henry Ford Museum, Mystic Seaport, and the May 4 Visitors Center at Kent State. I also loved the immersive Van Gogh exhibition in Cleveland earlier this year.

What kind of music/books/movies do you like and who are your favorite authors/bands?

Naturally I gravitate to historical fiction.

My favorite author is Karen White, who writes what she calls "grit lit" — stories that focus on strong female characters that take place in the South, usually across several generations of a family.

In the Tradd Street series, she writes about a woman who can feel the history of an object just by touching it. That skill sure would come in handy for a curator!

My favorite movies tend to be light-hearted, comedy adventures, like Jumangi, Dr. Doolittle, and Jungle Cruise. I am a huge Downton Abbey fan.

As for music, my taste is pretty eclectic. My car radio is usually set to '90s alternative music like PopRocks and Lithium, or 40s Junction. I love big band music. Back in college, I used to love discovering new music that no one else had heard because it wasn’t being played on the radio.

I would buy a compilation CD because I recognized just one band. My playlist is up to 249 of my most favorite "unskippable" songs, such as "Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down" by Fallout Boy, "Misery" by Soul Asylum, "Everybody Knows" by Concrete Blonde, "The Weight" by The Band, and many others.

I love to cook, so I very much enjoy dancing around my kitchen (loudly) singing along with my favorite songs!

Editor's note: Five questions with ... is a Sunday feature that showcases a member of the Stark County community. If you'd like to recommend someone to participate, send an email to newsroom@cantonrep.com.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Five questions with .. Kim Kenney of the McKinley Museum