Race at Smith College
Smith College was founded in 1871 by Sophia Smith, in an effort to extend the opportunity to education to women through the founding of "an institution for the higher education of young women, with the design to furnish for my own sex means and facilities for education equal to those which are afforded now in our colleges to young men.” Implicit in this message at the time, was the fact that only young white women were included in this opportunity. Here are a few key people and events within the history of people of color at Smith College.
For the first 12 years of existence, Smith College admitted only white women. The first woman of color admitted to Smith College was Salome Amelia Machado, a Latina who was born in Cuba, and arrived at Smith in 1879, and graduated in 1883. This makes Machado both the first international graduate of Smith, and the first woman of color graduate. It is important to remember that even at the time while Machado might have faced prejudice at Smith, both the American and Latin American racial systems operate on a form of a black white binary, which offers her some privilege, which is backed up by her class status, as Smith does not offer financial aid at the time.
Salome Amelia Machado
Hinook-Mahiwi-Kalinaka
Hinook-Mahiwi-Kalinaka (Angel Decora) is Winnebago and a member of the Thunderbird clan, and is the first indigenous North American graduate of Smith College. Kalinaka was the granddaughter of a Winnebago chief, and was forcibly removed from her family in Nebraska during the period of residential schools for Native children as a way to remove them from their cultural heritage. Kalinaka was forcibly enrolled in the Hampton Institute in Virginia, and from there, she enrolled in Burnham Classical School for Girls in Northampton, and enrolled in Smith College after that, where she studied Art.
Otelia Cromwell
Otelia Cromwell is the first Black graduate of Smith College in 1900. She transferred to Smith for her junior and senior years, after spending her first two attending classes at Miner Normal School and teaching high school classes in DC.
Cromwell was not allowed to live on campus during her two years at Smith, and lived at a professors house when the college refused her housing.
Cromwell also spoke out about Smith College denying Carrie Lee '13 housing after her white roommate complained of her discomfort of rooming with a Black student.
Tei Ninomiya
Tei Ninomiya is the first Asian graduate of Smith College in 1910. She is from Matsuyama, Shikoku, Japan. Upon graduating, Ninomiya returned to Japan, married, and spent much of her adult life as a teacher, YWCA administrator and Red Cross worker. At Smith, Ninomiya was a member of the Alpha Society, Smith’s first literary society; the Philosophical Society; Colloquium (Chemistry Society); Telescopium (Astronomy Club); and the Oriental Club, whose members were interested in the ethical, social and religious ideas originating in East Asia.
Sabiha Yassin Hashimy
Sabiha Yassin Hashimy is the first Middle eastern graduate of Smith College in 1937. She transferred to Smith from the American Junior College for Women located in what is now Beirut, Lebanon. She returned to Iraq after graduating from Smith, serving as the principal of the Kirch Secondary School for Girls in Baghdad for 14 years and traveling widely in Europe and the Middle East.
Archival Documents
