Hilda Worthington Smith

Hilda Worthington Smith (June 19, 1888 – March 3, 1984) was an American labor educator, social worker, and poet. She is best known for her roles as first Director of the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in Industry and as a co-founder of the Affiliated Schools for Workers (later known as the American Labor Education Service), although she also had a long career in government service supporting education for underserved groups including women, laborers, African-Americans and the elderly.

Early life and education Hilda Worthington Smith, nicknamed "Jane", was born on June 19, 1888, in New York City, the firstborn of three children of John Jewell and Mary Helen ( Hall) Smith. The Smith family spent its summers in West Park, New York, where young Hilda would later establish two resident workers' schools in the 1930s. The rest of the year was spent in their home near Central Park where Hilda and her younger sister (Helen Hall Smith; 1892–1971), and her younger brother (Jewell Kellogg Smith; 1890–1956), created an imaginary world described in her 1934 essay, "A Post Office in Fairyland". Her father's invention of a steamheating system, which heated many of the early office buildings of New York, provided the family with a handsome fortune.

She attended Bryn Mawr College between 1906 and 1910 for her undergraduate degree, during which she was elected to lead the student body as president of the Self Government Association.

The Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in Industry A pivotal moment in Worthington Smith's career came in 1921, when President Carey Thomas asked her to head the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in Industry, a brand new initiative that Thomas envisioned and set into motion after visiting Workers' Educational Association programs in England.

The Summer School was a residential program on the campus of Bryn Mawr College that operated for 8 weeks in the summer every year (except for 1935) between 1921 and 1938, hosting and educating female factory workers from all over the country who numbered approximately 1700 over the duration of the initiative. The focus was therefore on giving women the knowledge and tools to exercise agency in their lives, and to become leaders in their communities in a new era of social change.

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.

Later career and life The workers' education movement gained momentum, with Worthington Smith playing an active and significant role. In addition to the schools that she was directly involved in founding (such as the Hudson Shore Labor School, which was established on the site of her family home on the Hudson River), She also established and served as first Director of the Affiliated Schools for Workers (1927–1939), later known as the American Labor Education Service (1939–1962).

Life philosophy To sum up Jane's life a story done in 1984 for The New York Times does come close to sewing 1919 to 1983 into a fine embroidery. The author noted that in 1937 the programs Smith initiated but couldn't in 1933 call by name became the W.P.A.'s Workers Education Service. When tasked by Harry Hopkins to be education specialist, she already knew what she wanted.

Smith also wanted to teach "workers' education", a term that had a strong communist association. She related years later, "I hardly dared mention it because it was so unpopular."

Published works

Worthington Smith's published works include: Castle of Dream. Smith, 1910. (Full text on Internet Archive.) Women Workers at the Bryn Mawr Summer School. New York City : Affiliated Summer Schools for Women Workers in Industry and American Association for Adult Education, 1929. Poems. Washington : Merkle Press, 1964. Selected Poems. New York: Institute for Education and Research on Women and Work, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, 1977. Opening Vistas in Workers' Education: an autobiography. Smith, 1978.