Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Smith, Ella Lauchner
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1884-1972
History
Ella Lauchner Smith, 1884-1972, was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, eldest daughter of J. Willard Smith, well known shipping personage, and Frances Louise Hanson Smith. She attended McGill University and received BA and MA degrees in Classics (Hon.) in 1905 and 1908. In 1914 she was granted a BA (Hon. History, Class I) from Somerville College, Oxford University, England, and an MA in 1921. She was the first Canadian woman to receive a degree from Oxford.
Following teaching appointments at the Bedales School and Sweet Briar College, Virginia, she developed tuberculosis and spent five years in recovery at Saranac Lake. From 1926-1928 she taught at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.
Between 1928 and 1938 she carried out political research travel visiting Central Europe, Soviet Russia and Spain to experience living conditions in those countries. On return to Canada and the United States, an outspoken critic of the Stalinist regime, she delivered a series of candid public lectures on her experiences and her assessment of the political and social orders. In 1932 she lectured under the auspices of the U.S. Foreign Policy Association and in 1936 she was connected with the Dominion News Service, British United Press. From 1940-1951 Smith served as lecturer, Department of History, Mount Allison University and also ran a campus bookstore ca. 1951-1960. In 1963 she received a D.Litt. from Mount Allison.