Papers of Julia Hamilton Smith, 1942-1991 (inclusive), 1964-1981 (bulk)

Julia Hamilton Smith was born in 1885 in Washington, DC, to Hamilton Smith and Julia Luke Brooks Smith. Smith's grandfather, John J. Smith, was an abolitionist and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Her father, Hamilton Smith, was the first Black man to graduate from the Boston University Law School in 1879. He practiced dentistry and was a professor at Howard University School of Dentistry. He was also an amateur photographer. Smith's mother, Julia Luke Brooks Smith, was a teacher in the Washington, DC, public schools. Julia Hamilton Smith graduated high school in Washington, DC, and trained as a teacher; eventually she received a BA in education from Howard University. She taught public school in Washington, DC. In 1947, she retired and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to care for her brother, a physician. Smith was active in religious and civic organizations in Washington and Cambridge, including the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and the Young Women's Christian Association. She donated her father's photographs to the Museum of African American history in Boston, Massachusetts, and gave lectures on the collection. Smith died in 1980 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.