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Smith College is a women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It is a private, independent, liberal arts college. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters group of colleges. In 2013, it was number 18 on U.S. News & World Report's list of Best Liberal Arts Colleges.[6]

Smith is a member of the Five Colleges group.[7] That means its students can go to classes at four other schools: Mount Holyoke College, Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.[8]

Smith College was started in 1871 using money left by Sophia Smith. She left money in her will to start a women's college after her death. In her will, she said:

"I hereby make the following provisions for the establishment and maintenance 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."[9]

When Smith College opened in 1875, it had 14 students and six faculty.[10] By 1915–16, there were 1,724 students and 163 faculty.

The Smith campus covers 147 acres (0.6 km2). It has more than 1,200 varieties of trees and shrubs.

The United States Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, was a training ground for junior officers of the Women's Reserve of the U.S. Naval Reserve (WAVES). It was nicknamed "USS Northampton." On August 28, 1942, 120 women went to the school for training.[11]

Smith has had 10 presidents and two acting presidents. (An acting president is someone who does the work of a president when there is no president or the president is not available to do the work.) Elizabeth Cutter Morrow was the first acting president of Smith College and the first female head of the college, but she did not use the title of president. For the 1975 centennial, the college had its first woman president, Jill Ker Conway. Since her term, all Smith presidents but one have been women.

On December 10, 2012, the Board of Trustees announced that Kathleen McCartney would be the president of Smith College starting on July 1, 2013. Her official inauguration was planned for October 2013.[12]

Many Smith students have become notable. They include:

Barbara Adams, General Counsel of Pennsylvania

Tammy Baldwin, US Senator, D-Wisconsin

Barbara Bush (attended Smith but did not graduate), former First Lady of the United States

Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, author

Penny Chenery, recipient of the Smith College Medal, owner/breeder of Secretariat

Julia Child, chef and author

Julie Nixon Eisenhower, daughter of Richard Nixon

Caterina Fake (attended Smith but did not graduate), entrepreneur, founder of Flickr and Hunch

Margaret Farrar, crossword puzzle editor

Bonnie Franklin, actress

Betty Friedan, feminist, activist, author

Susan George, noted Franco-American political and social scientist, activist and writer

Molly Ivins, columnist and author

Madeleine L'Engle, award-winning author

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author and aviator

Catharine MacKinnon, feminist, activist, lawyer

Ann M. Martin, author

Margaret Mitchell, award-winning author of Gone with the Wind

Sylvia Plath, poet and author

Nancy Reagan, former First Lady of the United States

Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's Ambassador to U.S.

Gloria Steinem, feminist, activist, journalist (Class of 1956)

Niki Tsongas, Congresswoman, D-Massachusetts

Jane Yolen, award-winning author

Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993 (2nd edition).