Erminnie Adele Platt Smith

Erminnie Adele Platt Smith (born April 26, 1836, Marcellus, N.Y., U.S.—died June 9, 1886, Jersey City, N.J.) was an American anthropologist who was the first woman to specialize in ethnographic field work. Smith graduated from the Female Seminary of Troy, N.Y., in 1853. She married Simeon Smith, a Chicago lumber dealer and merchant, in 1855. When her sons were students in Germany, she studied at Strasbourg, Heidelberg, and Freiberg. Smith’s early work was in geology,...