Philip W. Smith Papers

Philip W. Smith (1889-1981) was a Quaker dairyman from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who was a prominent peace activist and active in Russian concerns. He was born May 3, 1889, on the family farm in New Hope to Heston Jacob and Anna (Johnson) Smith and was associated closely with his older brother, James Iden Smith, also a prominent Bucks County Quaker farmer. He attended the George School and later spent a few years at Penn State University. He married Edna Wood in 1913, and the couple had four children, but they later divorced. He subsequently married Anna Waterman. In 1925-1926, he and his wife and children lived in the U.S.S.R. where he worked with Russian Reconstruction, Inc., to learn about collective farming and give witness to his Quaker testimony. In 1958-1960 he again visited the U.S.S.R., and in later life, traveled widely for peace causes.

Smith was a member of Buckingham Monthly Meeting and as an ardent pacifist, wrote voluminous letters to congressmen, presidents, and newspaper editors. He died in 1981.