Erwin Frink Smith

Erwin Frink Smith (January 21, 1854 – April 6, 1927) was an American plant pathologist with the United States Department of Agriculture. He played a major role in demonstrating that bacteria could cause plant disease.

Life and career Smith was born in Gilbert Mills, near Fulton, New York, to Rancellor King Smith In 1870 he moved with his family to an 80-acre farm, which eventually included an apple orchard, in Clinton County, Michigan. The Smith family eventually moved to North Plains Township, Michigan. Smith was finally able to attend Ionia High School, starting in 1876, when he was 22 years old. Smith was accepted to the University of Michigan in 1885 and passed examinations for most of the coursework soon after acceptance, which allowed him to earn his bachelor's degree in biology in 1886 after only one year at the university. the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1914, and the American Philosophical Society in 1916.

Dutch American botanical explorer Frank Nicholas Meyer worked for Smith in 1901, upon his arrival in the United States.

At a time when it was unusual to do so, Smith was known for hiring many women at the Bureau of Plant industry, including botanists Nellie A. Brown, Mary K. Bryan, Florence Hedges, Lucia McCulloch, Agnes J. Quirk, Angie Beckwith, and Charlotte Elliott. Historian Margaret W. Rossiter cites this as an example of a harem effect. In Smith's case, a factor in hiring women only as assistants may have been USDA's structural exclusion of women from taking the examinations that would have allowed them to enter the higher-ranking jobs for which they were qualified. Many of Smith's assistants praised him for giving them research projects suited to their skills rather than confining them to the more limited tasks presumed by their job classifications.

Smith died on April 6, 1927, in Washington, D.C.. His ashes were scattered at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He was survived by his second wife, Ruth Warren Smith.

The genus Erwinia is named in Smith's honor.