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Ruby Green Smith (1878 - 1960) was born in Indiana and
received her B.A. at Stanford University in 1902. She continued
her studies and became a research instructor in Entomology and
Bionomics, completing her M.A. in 1904. In 1908, Smith co-authored
Inheritance in Silkworms with the famous Stanford biologist
Vernon Kellogg, who studied evolution in insects. She then came
to Ithaca, received her Ph.D. from Cornell in 1914, and promptly
began a long and laudable career in extension. From 1919 to 1923,
she moved from assistant to associate state leader of home demonstration
agents, and finally became the state leader, as well as a professor
in extension. She was at one time the assistant director of the
Conservation Division of the New York State Food Commission and
worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Smith worked in extension until her retirement in 1944. In
addition to writing a history of extension, she also started
the Cayuga Bird Club, Ithaca Housewives' League, and Farmers'
Market. Affectionately known as "Aunt Ruby" to most people in
extension and in the College of Home Economics, Smith is best
known as the author of the Home Bureau Creed, 500,000
copies of which were published and distributed nationwide. The
creed reads as follows.
| To maintain the highest ideals of home life; to
count children the most important of crops; to so mother
them that their bodies may be sound, their minds clear,
their spirits happy, and their characters generous:
To place service above comfort; to let loyalty to
high purpose silence discordant notes; to let neighborliness
supplant hatreds; to be discouraged never:
To lose self in generous enthusiasms; to extend to
the less fortunate a helping hand; to believe one's
community may become the best of communities; and to
cooperate with others for the common ends of a more
abundant home and community life;
This is the offer of the Home Bureau to the homemaker
of today.
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Faculty Biographies
