Zilpha Drew Smith

Zilpha Drew Smith (1852 – 1926) was an American social worker. She was a leading figure in the charity organization movement and in the professionalization of social work, in Boston and across the nation.

Early life and education Smith was born on January 25, 1852, in Pembroke, Massachusetts, to Silvanus and Judith Winsor Smith. Her parents were involved in numerous social causes including abolitionism, education, temperance, and women's suffrage, She graduated from the Boston Girls' High and Normal School in 1868.

Career Her first employment was as a telegraph operator. She subsequently revised the Probate Court index for Suffolk County.

Smith joined the Associated Charities of Boston as Head of the Office Staff in 1879 and became its General Secretary in 1886. At that organization, she applied new theories about "charity organization." The charity organization movement aimed to coordinate private agencies in order to use their resources efficiently to ameliorate urban poverty. Smith developed a centralized office to coordinate unpaid and paid workers. She emphasized record-keeping and shared information. In 1900, Smith lectured at the New York School of Philanthropy. She also produced several books. One production, from 1901, studied 234 wives deserted by their husbands, from research conducted by the Associated Charities of Boston.

Smith had a lifelong collaborative relationship with another social work pioneer, Mary Richmond. At first Richmond looked to Smith for mentorship but over time they came to see one another as colleagues and eventually close friends. Richmond applied Smith's charitable organization approach in her own city of Baltimore, Maryland.

From 1904 to 1918, she was the Associate Director of the new Boston School of Social Work maintained by Simmons College and Harvard University, overseeing the expansion of its curriculum and the use of case records in social work education.

Death Zilpha Drew Smith died in Boston in 1926 and was buried in the Mayflower Cemetery, Duxbury, Massachusetts.