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Overview
In 1919, Stella Howse Smith was teaching in the Rutherford County School System when she accepted the position of Jeanes Teacher/Supervisor of African American schools in Maury County. She received scholarships to attend Tuskegee and Hampton Institutes to pursue a course of study that would prepare her for this new position. American philanthropist, Anna T. Jeanes, established a million-dollar endowment to fund the Jeanes Teacher/Supervisor positions to support education and vocational programs for African Americans in the rural communities in the Southern United States. The Jeanes Teacher/ Supervisors began with little more than a teacher, a building and the community’s desire to educate their children. In addition to collaborating with the teachers to implement changes to the curriculum, Smith served as the liaison between African American schools and the county school administrators. Since public health was one of her concerns, she worked to improve public health and living conditions in the community; and did whatever was most needed in the community. In August 1921, O. H. Bernard, of the department of public instruction, reported “Not only has Maury County one of the largest building programs for schools in the state, but it unquestionably has the best building scheme in Tennessee.” After laboring for more than twenty years in Maury County, the system of education under her guidance was “second to no other county in the state.” By 1940, twenty-eight African American schools had been established in Maury County: two high schools, ten two-teacher schools, and sixteen one-teacher schools. Following Smith, Johnnie B. Fulton, and Edward H. Kimes served as Jeanes Teacher/Supervisors before the position was eliminated with the court-ordered desegregation of Maury County Schools in the 1960s. Smith, born in Rutherford County, received a Bachelor of Science degree in history and social science from Tennessee A & I State University in Nashville. She was married to Dr. William P. Smith of British Guiana in South America. They had no children.
