BIOGRAPHICAL DATABASE OF NAWSA SUFFRAGISTS, 1890-1920
Biography of Josephine E. Funck Smith, 1858-1937
By Linda D. Wilson, Independent Historian, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Maryland suffragist Josephine E. (Funck) Smith was born on March 22, 1858, in Maryland. She married Charles G. Smith and they had three children: A. Jeannette, Charles Raymond, and Helen. After graduating from the Maryland College of Pharmacy in March 1873, Charles Smith was a pharmacist in Baltimore and a member of the Maryland Pharmaceutical Association.
According to extant records, Josephine Smith became involved in the women's suffrage movement as a member of the Baltimore City Woman Suffrage Association in January 1906. The association was organized in 1892, and Mrs. J. William (Emma J. Maddox) Funck served as its president from 1896 to 1920. Josephine Smith represented the chapter at state conventions.
In 1906 Josephine Smith and Mrs. J. William Funck donated rooms to the new Franklin Square Hospital in Baltimore. In addition to suffrage work, Smith supported the Baltimore Alliance, a charitable organization to help the poor through the Family Welfare Association, the Babies' Milk Fund Association, and the Instructive Visiting Nurses' Association. In February 1931, she made a donation to the Baltimore Chapter of the American Red Cross.
Apparently, Josephine Smith was a member of the Reformed Church. In October 1899, she had as her guest Reverend George B. Resser of the First Reformed Church in Hanover, Pennsylvania. He had traveled to Baltimore to attend the Potomac Synod of the Reformed Church in the United States.
Josephine E. Smith died on July 31, 1937, in Baltimore and was buried in Greenmount Cemetery. Her husband preceded her in death on November 3, 1898.
SOURCES: Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, MD), March 12, 1873; November 7 and December 10, 1898; October 25, 1899; January 7, 1906; April 28, 1923; February 4, 1931; August 2, 1937. Ida Husted Harper, ed., The History of Woman Suffrage, 1900-1920, Vol. 6 (NY: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1922): 252. [LINK] Margie H. Luckett, Maryland Women, Baltimore, 1931 (Baltimore, MD: self-published, 1931), 141. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957, for Josephine Smith and her daughters Jeannette and Helen, arriving from Southampton, England on September 10, 1925. U.S. Census, 1900, 1910, and 1920, Baltimore, Maryland.