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A Guide to her Papers at the Indiana University Archives

Elizabeth Rutting
Electronic finding aid encoded by Beth Benda

Summary Information

Repository
Indiana University Archives
1320 East Tenth Street
Herman B Wells Library E460
Bloomington, IN 47405-7000
Phone: 812-855-1127
Email: archives@indiana.edu
http://www.libraries.iub.edu/archives

Creator
Smith, Johnnie Rutland, 1888-1977.

Title
Johnnie Rutland Smith papers,1955-1974,  bulk 1955

Collection no
C224

Extent
.8 cubic ft.

Language
Materials are in English.

Abstract
Johnnie Rutland Smith was the wife of Henry Lester Smith, former professor and dean of the Indiana University School of Education. This collection consists primarily of papers associated with Johnnie Rutland Smith's participation in the 1955 White House Conference on Education and the 1960 White House Conference on Children and Youth.

Access Restrictions

This collection is open for research.

Advance notice is required.

Biographical Note

Johnnie Wilson Rutland was born in Wildwood, Florida, 19 March 1888. She received a bachelor’s degree from Florida State College for Women (later Florida State University) in 1908 and a master’s degree in English literature from Columbia in 1915. Between these two periods, she taught the fifth and sixth grades and high school English in Tampa, Florida. While at Columbia, she met Henry Lester Smith (1876-1963), a native of Indiana and graduate of Indiana University who was working on his Ph.D. there, largely through summer coursework. At that time, he had already been a faculty member at Indiana University and served as Superintendent of Schools in Bloomington for six years. He also was Dean-elect of I. U.’s School of Education, on leave from the university while at Columbia. The two were married in New York City on 3 Feb 1915. Henry Lester Smith served as Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1915-1916, receiving his Ph.D. in 1916. In that same year he began a tenure as Dean of Indiana University’s School of Education that would last 30 years.

Johnnie Rutland Smith continued her own education at Indiana University, earning an M.S. in education in 1931 and a Ph.D. in psychology with a minor in English in 1934. She taught children’s literature at Indiana University in 1925-1926 and comparative education (through the Extension Division) in 1940, and served as a lecturer in the Extension Division beginning in 1932. She spoke German, Spanish, and French, and served as a translator of the World Conference of the Teaching Profession in New York in 1946. She co-authored An Introduction to Research in Education (1959) with her husband, as well as a number of articles.

In addition to these professional and educational endeavors, she was very involved in civic organizations, especially those that catered to women, promoted education, or did both. A tribute to her after her death states that “she believed that club membership was a channel of service for women in the community and a stimulus for personal development” (Nell Olsson, The Herald-Telephone 22 July 1977). She founded the Monroe County Department Club, the Bloomington chapter of the National Society of Arts and Letters, and the Bloomington branch of the National League of American Pen Women. She served as president of the Bloomington Council of Women (1926-1927); the Bloomington Woman’s Club, a literary club (1932-1934); the Nineteenth Century Club, a literary and philanthropic organization (1933-1935); the Faculty Women’s Club (1934-1935); the Monroe County Federated Clubs (1935-at least 1941); and the Junior-Senior High School Parent Teacher Association (1936-1938). In addition she also served in many other roles in these and other organizations, such as the Bloomington Hospital Board (1927-1929) and the Bloomington Council of Girl Scouts (1930-1936), and was a member of the Hoosier Salon Patron’s Association for sixteen years.

Her activity in the American Association of University Women was particularly noteworthy. When she joined the Bloomington Branch of the organization in 1915, it was only two years old, and still known as the Association of Collegiate Alumnae (the name was changed to the American Association of University Women in 1921--see finding aid for Collection C209). Beginning in 1922, she served as chairman of various committees at the local and state levels, and sat on committees at the sectional and national levels of the organization as well. She was president of the Indiana Federation of Branches from 1928 to 1929 and of the Bloomington Branch from 1938 to 1940, and was selected the official representative of Indiana University and the Bloomington branch of the A. A. U. W. to the national convention in March 1937.

Her association with the Indiana Federation of Clubs also seems to have been quite significant, as her invitation to participate in the White House Conference on Education documented in this collection was addressed to her in her role in this organization (see scope and content note). Her earliest association with this group seems to have been in 1935, when she became chairman of the American Home Department, and in 1957, she co-directed a three-day Leadership Training Institute on the Indiana University campus, which was co-sponsored by the Indiana Federation of Clubs. She served as president of the organization between 1966 and 1968, and appears to have remained active in the organization afterward as well.

Despite the fact that Johnnie Rutland Smith was known as Mrs. Henry Lester Smith for most of her life, and her longest association with Indiana University was as the wife of the Dean of the School of Education, she was a highly educated woman in her own right who was engaged in the cause of education in many different roles over the course of her long and active life. Olsson calls her “one of the most beloved and distinguished women in the Hoosier state” (op. cit.). She was mentioned in Principal Women of America, Vol. 1 in 1932 and was given Distinguished Alumni awards by both Indiana University (in 1969) and Florida State University. Johnnie Rutland and Henry Lester Smith had three children, Martha Elisabeth (born 1917), Ruth Charlotte (born 1919), and Henry Rutland (born 1922). Henry Lester Smith died in 1963 at the age of 87 and Johnnie Rutland Smith died on 17 July 1977 at the age of 88.

Scope and Content Note

This collection consists primarily of papers associated with Johnnie Rutland Smith’s participation in two national conferences on education and young people. In 1955, she was invited to attend the White House Conference on Education in her position as 2nd Vice President of the Indiana Federation of Clubs. In 1960, she was invited to participate in the White House conference on Children and Youth as one of four delegates of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, in which she was serving as chairman of the Education Department. Both of these conferences were called by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who served as honorary chairman; the first drew nearly 2000 people from many walks of life all over the country, and the second some 7000 participants. The 1960 Conference on Children and Youth was the sixth such conference and celebrated the golden anniversary of the first, which had been called by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1909. The collection includes programs, newspaper clippings, reports, notes and drafts of observations by Mrs. Smith, and other materials related to the conferences, arranged by activities that took place before, during, and after the conferences, with separate publicity folders for clippings from news media covering the conferences. Note that the 1955 conference also included a preparatory state conference, the material for which is included in its own folder. Also included in the collection is a pamphlet written by Johnnie Rutland Smith in 1974. This is a history of the Hoosier Salon, an annual exhibition of work by Indiana artists, written to commemorate its fiftieth anniversary.

Arrangement

Papers organized into two series: Conferences and Publications.

• Indexing Terms

• The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in IUCAT, the IU Libraries' online catalog. Materials about related topics, persons or places can be found by searching the catalog using these terms.

• • Names
  • White House Conference on Children and Youth (1960 : Washington, D.C.) --History --Sources.
  • White House Conference on Education (1955 : Washington, D.C.) --History --Sources.
  • Smith, Johnnie Rutland, 1888-1977 --Archives.
  • Smith, Johnnie Rutland, 1888-1977. Hoosier Salon, 1925-1974.
  • Smith, Johnnie Rutland, 1888-1977. Hoosier Salon, 1925-1974.
• • Topics
  • Education --Congresses.
  • Women college teachers --Indiana --Bloomington --Archives.
  • Women college teachers --Indiana --Bloomington --Intellectual life --20th century.
• • Titles
  • Hoosier Salon, 1925-1974.

Related Material

For the papers of Smith's husband, Henry Lester Smith, see IU Archives Collection C110.

Administrative Information

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