Eliza Kennedy Smith

Eliza Kennedy Smith (December 11, 1889 – October 23, 1964), also known as Mrs. R. Templeton Smith, was a 20th-century American suffragist, civic activist, and government reformer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Upon her death in 1964, The Pittsburgh Press described her as "a relentless, tenacious watchdog of the City's purse strings" who "probably attended more budget sessions over the years than anyone else in Pittsburgh either in or out of government".

Partnering with her sister, Lucy Kennedy Miller (1880–1962), and Jennie Bradley Roessing, Mary E. Bakewell, Hannah J. Patterson, and Mary Flinn Lawrence during the early 1900s, she helped to found the Allegheny County Equal Rights Association (later renamed as the Equal Franchise Federation of Western Pennsylvania and then the Allegheny County League of Women Voters).

In addition, she collaborated with her sister, Lucy Kennedy Miller, to uncover Pittsburgh city government corruption. Their investigation led to Mayor Charles H. Kline's indictment by a grand jury on forty-eight counts of malfeasance and his subsequent conviction in 1932, which resulted in a six-month prison sentence.

Formative years Born as Eliza Jane Kennedy on December 11, 1889, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Eliza Kennedy Smith was a daughter of suffragists and women's rights advocates Jennie E. (Breneman) Kennedy (1852–1930) and Julian Kennedy (1852–1932) and the sibling of: Lucy Kennedy Miller (1880–1962), a prominent 20th-century American suffragist who became the first president of the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters (PLWV); Joseph Walker Kennedy (1884–1950); Julian Kennedy (1886–1955); Hugh Truesdale Kennedy (1888–1989); and Thomas Walker Kennedy (1894–1922). Her parents moved the Kennedy family to Pittsburgh when she was three years old.

Eliza Kennedy's Suffrage Angel Cake recipe, 1915. In 1915, her parents announced her engagement to Raymond Templeton Smith (1888–1967), a graduate of Cornell who subsequently went on to become an executive vice president of the Pittsburgh Coal Company. Her engagement party, which was held at her family's home on May 17 of that year became a women's suffrage advocacy night when her sister, Lucy Kennedy Miller, "president of the Equal Franchise Federation of Pittsburgh … called on several of the guests to give brief suffrage speeches." She married R. Templeton Smith later that year; they subsequently became the parents of sons Templeton Smith (1919–2007), who was born on August 19, 1919, and went on to become one of the first environmental lawyers in America; and Kennedy Smith (1922–1996), who was born in Pittsburgh on July 12, 1922.

Suffrage and women's rights advocacy Sometime around 1910, Eliza Kennedy and her sister, Lucy Kennedy Miller, and their mother, Jennie E. Kennedy, participated in suffrage advocacy training at a school run by Carrie Chapman Catt. The trio then took increasingly active roles in the suffrage movement at the city, county, and state levels, marching in suffrage parades, hosting suffrage events for young women, and lobbying state legislators to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Anti-corruption fighter and government watchdog Between the 1930s and 1950s, she collaborated with her sister, Lucy Kennedy Miller, to uncover Pittsburgh city government corruption. Exposing the profligate spending and improper city contract awards of Mayor Charles H. Kline, their investigation led to Kline's indictment by a grand jury on forty-eight counts of malfeasance. Convicted in 1932, he received a six-month prison sentence. which reported that she and Moreell were supporters of U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, a Republican from Arizona who was running to become president of the United States. She and Moreell were seeking election as delegates to that year's Republican National Convention, and had "committed themselves unequivocally to vote for Senator Goldwater at the convention beginning with the first ballot and continuing until Goldwater [was] nominated or [withdrew] his name."

Illness, death, and interment Diagnosed with carcinoma of the sigmoid colon during the spring of 1963, her health continued to decline as the cancer metastasized and spread to her lungs. She was initially cared for at the Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh, before she returned to her Squirrel Hill home in the fall of 1964. She died in her sleep there at the age of 74 on October 23, 1964,