Emily Goodrich Smith (1830–1903) was an American newspaper correspondent. [1]
Early life and education
Emily L. Goodrich was born in the old Hancock house, Boston, Massachusetts, June 1, 1830. She was the oldest daughter of the Hon. Samuel Griswold Goodrich, widely known as "Peter Parley". Her mother was Miss Mary Boott, of an English family of position. Being obliged to go abroad, they placed their young daughter in the famous Inglis-McCleod school. Her education continued later in France and Italy, where every opportunity for study was given her, and she became an accomplished linguist. In 1846, in Paris, France, she was presented at the court of Louis Philippe I and saw the throne of the "citizen king" broken and burned in the French Revolution of 1848. At that time, she took her first lesson in caring for the wounded. The court of the hotel was filled with men shot down by the soldiery. A mob of 90,000 controlled the city three days. For 20 hours, Alphonse de Lamartine held them by his eloquence, and Miss Goodrich stood on a balcony near when the rabble hurled down a statue and thrust him into its niche.[1]
While her father was Consul in Paris, she assisted her mother in entertaining foreign and domestic dignitaries. In the days so alarming for all Paris, the American Consulate and Mr. Goodrich's house were filled with terror-stricken foreigners, who found their only place of safety under the protection of the American flag.[1]
Miss Goodrich was presented at the Court of St James's at the time of the first Great Exhibition.[1]
Career
In 1856, she returned to the United States and married Nathaniel Smith, of Connecticut, a grandson of Nathan Smith who was Senator in the days when Congress sat in Philadelphia, and chief justice of Connecticut.[1]
In 1861, Mrs. Smith followed her husband to the Civil War, where she remained with him for two years. He was injured in an explosion, but his death did not occur till some years after the war had ended. "Mrs. Colonel", as the soldiers called her, was mentioned in the State reports as being very efficient in tent and hospital.[1]
She wrote many stories and some verse for various magazines. During her years in Paris and the stirring times thereafter, she was correspondent of a New York City daily. Her letters during the war and accounts of the Centennial Exposition were widely read and copied.[1]
In 1883, to help others, she took up the work of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (CLSC), and she was one of ten in Connecticut who, in 1891, were enrolled in the highest order of Chautauqua degrees.[1]
When Mount Vernon was to be purchased by the women of America, Smith was appointed first vice-regent of Connecticut, and her daughter was one of her most valued assistants.[1]
In Connecticut, she was an agent for the Humane Society.[1]
For many years, she lived in Woodbury, Connecticut but later moved to Waterbury, Connecticut. From 1873 til 1893, she was more or less connected with the newspapers, and was for two years secretary of the large correspondence association of the American.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). "SMITH, Mrs. Emily L. Goodrich". A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life. Charles Wells Moulton. p. 661. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
External links
Works related to Woman of the Century/Emily L. Goodrich Smith at Wikisource
