Papers of Corinna Lindon Smith, 1851-1966

Corinna Haven (Putnam) Smith was born on September 27, 1876, in New York City, the daughter of George Haven Putnam (the son of George Palmer Putnam, founder of the publishing firm of G.P. Putnam's Sons) and Rebecca Kettel (Shepard) Putnam. She had four sisters: Dorothy Lesley, Ellen, Ethel ("Tuff") Frothingham, and Bertha Haven. The Putnam family, which had long-standing roots in New England, socialized with many famous and influential people, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, O. Henry, Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson), and Thomas Hardy. Smith's paternal aunt was the well-known physician and suffragist, Mary Putnam Jacobi.

After the death of Rebecca Putnam of typhoid fever in 1895, George Haven Putnam remarried in 1899. His second wife was Emily James, a former dean of Barnard College; Smith's half-brother, Palmer Coslett Putnam, was born from this marriage.

Smith entered Bryn Mawr College in 1893. Although she was bright, she was not inclined toward academics and left college before graduating. Her sister Bertha graduated from Bryn Mawr, earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University, and subsequently became a well-known scholar of medieval British law and a professor at Mount Holyoke College.

After her mother's death, Smith assumed the management of the Putnam household while also working long hours for the William McKinley/Theodore Roosevelt Republican Presidential campaign of 1896. During this period, she attended sophisticated house parties and began to frequent nightclubs. Concerned about his high-spirited daughter's well-being, George Haven Putnam took her on a European tour in 1897.

She met the artist Joseph Lindon Smith in Dublin, New Hampshire, in 1898; they were married September 18, 1899. In November of that year, Smith, Joseph Lindon Smith, and his parents traveled to Egypt, where Joseph Lindon Smith painted art treasures recovered during archaeological digs. The Smiths spent much of their fifty-one-year marriage living abroad, especially in Egypt. Fascinated by Middle Eastern culture, Smith began studying classical Arabic in 1901, eventually becoming fluent in the language. Although a staunch Christian, she was a serious student of Islam, passing a stringent oral exam conducted in Arabic by Muslim religious leaders on Islam and the Koran.

The Smiths had three daughters: Rebecca (born 1902), Frances (also known as Bina, born 1903), and Lois Lindon (also known as Bois, born 1911). The family led a cosmopolitan life and their high-profile social milieu included such personalities as Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), Isabella Stewart Gardner, John Singer Sargent, and Amelia Earhart, who married Smith's cousin, George Palmer Putnam. Smith and Joseph Lindon Smith entertained frequently, and their summer house, "Loon Point," on Dublin Lake in New Hampshire, included an open-air theatre for the many spectacular plays and pageants they sponsored. In addition, the family occupied a house in Boston.

Smith's father-in-law, Henry Francis Smith, handled all financial transactions for his son and daughter-in-law, who had to ask for money from him each time they needed it. This and other factors impelled Smith to look for work, and in 1909 she signed up with a lecture bureau and began her career as a professional speaker, lecturing on Egyptian archaeology, Islam, and literati such as Henry James and Thomas Hardy.

During World War I, she and her husband worked with the Comité Franco-Américain pour la Protection des Enfants de la Frontier (Franco-American Committee for the Protection of the Children of the Frontier), which provided assistance to impoverished French children and their families and was headquartered in Paris. The committee's president was Auguste Jacacci, who became a life-long friend of the Smiths. In 1916, the Smiths traveled to France to visit the front and aid people devastated by the war. They returned to France in 1917, spending most of that trip visiting General John J. Pershing and his troops in the American war zone. Joseph Lindon Smith stayed in France until the end of the war, while Smith immersed herself in public lecturing in the United States on behalf of the war effort, French children's relief work, and the Red Cross. In November 1918, just before the armistice was declared, she returned to France and rejoined her husband.

Rebecca Smith graduated from high school in 1920, and that year Smith took her to France. At the request of Colonel Prangez, the head of the Bureau for the Reconstruction of Industry in France, Smith undertook a three-week tour of France and Germany to assess the damage suffered by over 200 factories in the two countries. As a result of this expedition, she wrote Rising Above the Ruins in France, which was published in 1920.

Smith returned to the United States and, after recuperating from the stress of wartime, began working with Native Americans. She joined the Executive Committee of the Eastern Association (later known as the Association on American Indian Affairs) in 1924; two years later, the General Federation of Women's Clubs appointed her its national chair of Indian Welfare.

The Smiths resumed their world travels in the 1920s, and spent much of the next two-and-a-half decades in the Middle East, based primarily at the Harvard Camp excavations near Giza in Egypt, but also journeying to Israel, Turkey, Iran, and other countries. Joseph Lindon Smith's career drawing and painting ancient artifacts took the couple to far-flung locales, including Japan, Java, and Southeast Asia. After a long, prolific, and distinguished career, Joseph Lindon Smith died in Dublin, New Hampshire, in 1950. After his death, Smith adopted his middle name, calling herself Corinna Lindon Smith.

Although suffering from frequent illnesses, Smith spent the next fifteen years energetically working for diverse causes, including Native American rights, public health programs, narcotics control, and the rehabilitation of former female prisoners. Her interest in ancient civilizations never flagged, and she maintained her membership in a number of organizations promoting the study of Middle Eastern history and art, including the American Research Center in Egypt. As the grande dame of Dublin, she remained active in the community life of her beloved town until her death in 1965.

Smith was the author of two books: Rising Above the Ruins in France: An Account of the Progress Made Since the Armistice in the Devastated Regions in Reestablishing Industrial Activities and the Normal Life of the People (with Caroline R. Hill, New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1920) and Interesting People: Eighty Years With the Great and Near Great (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962), and edited Tombs, Temples, and Ancient Art by Joseph Lindon Smith (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956).