Hannah Whitall Smith Correspondence: Martha Carey Thomas

Martha Carey Thomas (Jan. 2, 1857-Dec. 2, 1935) was a graduate of Cornell University and went on to earn a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Zurich in 1882. She was the first woman and first foreigner to receive a doctorate from the university. She also attended classes at the University of Leipzig and the Sorbonne in Paris. She returned to the United States to be the dean of Bryn Mawr College. In 1894 she became the second president of Bryn Mawr College, a position she held until 1922.

In 1908, Carey Thomas became the first president of the National College Women’s Equal Suffrage League, in addition to being active in the National American Woman Suffrage Association. After women won the right to vote, she became a major advocate for the National Woman’s Party and one of the first to push for an equal rights amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Carey Thomas was also instrumental in creating the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in Industry (1921-1938), which was an experimental program to help provide academic education to young women, who were mostly factory workers with very little education. Many of these women went on to take leading positions in trade unions and in their local communities, very much in line with the legacy of Hannah Whitall Smith.

While there is no letter in the collection from Martha Carey Thomas, her life and activities give us a place to refer to the influence Robert Pearsall Smith and Hannah Whitall Smith had within their own family circle. Married on November 5, 1851, the couple had seven children, but only three lived to become adults. Their only son, Logan Pearsall Smith, was educated in Harvard and Oxford and became a writer and critic with a special interest in 17th century divines.

Hannah and Robert’s daughter, Mary, was married twice. First she married an Irish barrister, Benjamin Conn “Frank” Costelloe. They had two daughters: Ray Strachey and Karin Stephen. Mary later divorced Costelloe and married art historian, Bernard Berenson, who was an authority on Renaissance art. Mary’s eldest daughter, Rachel Pearsall Costelloe married Oliver Strachey in 1911. He was the son of Jane Maria Strachey, a well-known British suffragette who was one of the leaders of the Mud March of 1907. Ray Strachey, herself would become a major part of the British suffrage movement and wrote a book called The Cause in 1928. After women received the right to vote she ran for political office a number of times without success. Catherine Elizabeth Costelloe married Adrian Stephen, the brother of Virginia Woolf, in 1914. Known as Karin, she became a psychoanalyst and psychologist, but the couple continued the family tradition of social activism by being conscientious objectors during World War I.

Hannah and Robert’s second daughter, Alyssa Pearsall Smith was the first wife of the British philosopher and Nobel laureate, Bertrand Russell, known for his political activism and writing. Alyssa separated from Russell in 1911, and they divorced in 1921. She worked with Italian refugees during World War II, and established a School for Mothers in London, in an effort to reduce infant mortality.

Martha Carey Thomas, was a niece of Hannah Whitall Smith, the daughter of her sister Mary Whitall Thomas. Known as Carey Thomas, she was greatly influenced by the feminism of her mother and her aunt. Carey was especially close to Hannah’s son Frank, who died in 1872. Her later accomplishments, and well as those of Hannah’s own daughters reflect on how Hannah’s social activism and feminist ideals influenced women around her through her personal connections as well as her correspondence.