Talk:Hilda W. Smith

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Hilda Worthington Smith (1888-1984) was an advocate for workers education programs who worked in the administrations of FDR and LBJ, . In 1965 she returned to public service as an analyst to the Office of Economic Opportunity.  

In 1925 Eleanor Roosevelt(ER) visited Bryn Mawr College and first met Hilda Smith at the summer school she ran in 1921 for women workers at the behest of the college. Smith believed that worker education could foster responsible citizenship and converted ER to that view. Supported by ER, Smith was appointed to the FERA(Federal Emergency Relief Administration) and then became a director of the WPA in 1935. It was Smith who designed a network of residential camps for unemployed women that would become known as the “she-she-she_camps", where women on relief received education and vocational training, free housing, and more importantly, moral support. The camps came under fire in the media by anti-communists and feminists and were subsequently taken over by the NYA(National Youth Administration) which deemed them un-necessary and then closed them in 1937. Later, as part of the FPHA(Federal Public Housing Administration), Smith worked on education and recreational programs for war workers. She left the federal government in 1945 to consult on issues related to worker education and lobby congress. She wrote and published articles on worker issues until passing in 1984. She graduated Bryn Mawr in 1910 and held 2 masters degrees from the institution.

The Visit

ER's journal of August 2nd, 1939 notes her visit to her friend at the school for women she ran during the summer months. She arrived at the Hudson Labor School[1] at tea time and joined the group of women in the shade of the trees. Hilda Smith owned the property and used it as a summer school for women workers. Eleanor wrote; "The group was gathered in front of the house under the trees before I arrived and they asked me some interesting questions. “What did I think they should try to get out of the seven weeks spent on the banks of the Hudson?” “How would one go about interesting people in a community in working conditions?”, etc. There were two English girls, a German refugee and a Swedish girl at the school that summer. While we were all having tea, I was amused to have one of the English girls say to me: “What a contrast between what you are able to do and what our Queen is free to do. I wonder if she would not give a great deal to have the same amount of freedom?” She continued, "I am sure this school does a great deal to develop the mental abilities of the girls, but I think it is equally valuable because of the health which they acquire, for they do all their studying practically out of doors, eat on the balcony, and swim and play together." ER knew the value of this, having championed the work Hilda Smith pioneered in convincing FDR to give up funds for the formation of the She-She-She_Camps in 1933 when he as part of the New Deal created the CCC(Civilian_Conservation_Corps). The camps fell victim to politics and sexism and were closed by 1937, where the twin crises of shelter (200,000 women were homeless in 1933) and hunger plaguing the destitute as a result of the depression.

Early work

In 1921 Smith taught at a summer school for unemployed women at Bryn Mawr college, teaching them skills to re-enter the job market. It was first established by the Ann Carey Thomas, then president of Bryn Mawr College, when Miss Smith was dean of the college.[2]

Ms. Thomas had come into contact with the workers' education movement while traveling thru England and the Scandinavian countries after World War I. Determining that this country needed a version of this school she chose Dean Smith to start it. Ms. Smith directed the school for its first 13 years, first at Bryn Mawr, then later at West Park, N.Y.

By 1927 there were a group of labor schools called the Affiliated Schools for Workers directed by Miss Smith. Later the name was changed to the American Labor Education Service Inc., which held its last conference on April 28, 1962. By then labor education had a firm foothold in American education.

In 1933 Harry Hopkins, as adviser to FDR and head of the FERA, borrowed Ms. Smith to set up an educational program for the Administration, which in 1937 became the W.P.A.'s Workers Education Service.

As FDR's Educational Specialist, She created and ran multiple programs; one such program employed out-of-work teachers, whose graduates include Hubert H. Humphrey, a future vice president under LBJ. Another set up the She She She camps for unemployed women, ER's bid to place women in the program of Civilian Conservation Corps camps for men, and to provide education and housing for unemployed youth.

The Camps were closed in 1937 and she returned to the Hudson Labor School but remained friends with many in the administration, and remained in gov't service during WWII. In 1945 she took over the chair of the National Committee of Labor Education and served until 1959 when she pursued consulting for the State of New York on Labor and Education. In 1965, then at the age of 76, Ms. Smith joined the Office of Economic Opportunity as a program analyst. She was hired by Sargent Shriver, the agency's first director. She retired in 1972 at age 83 to write.