Ruth Proskauer Smith, 1906-

The daughter of Joseph M. and Alice (Naumburg) Proskauer, Ruth (Proskauer) Smith was born in Deal, New Jersey, on August 14, 1907. She attended the Ethical Culture School in New York City, and Radcliffe College, where she received her bachelor's degree in 1929 and her master's degree in fine arts in 1932. RPS married Theodore Smith on June 11, 1932; the couple had two children and were divorced in 1946.

RPS began her involvement in the family planning and abortion rights movement as a field worker for the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (1946-1948). She served there as executive secretary (1949-1953) until she moved to New York and became administrator of the family planning service at Mount Sinai Hospital (1953-1955). She served as executive director of the Human Betterment Association for Voluntary Sterilization (1955-1964) and of the Association for the Study of Abortion (1964-1966). In 1967 she helped organize the National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws (now the National Abortion Rights Action League or NARAL) and worked for the liberalization of abortion laws in New York State, first with New Yorkers for Abortion Law Repeal and then with the Committee for the Cook-Leichter Bill, a bill that declared abortion a matter to be decided by a woman and her physician and that was enacted in 1970. Later in 1970 the Abortion Rights Association of New York (ARANY) was established to help implement the law by disseminating information about its requirements and the rights and obligations of women and of physicians; RPS served as president and vice-president. Following the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, the organization was renamed the Abortion Rights Association.

RPS was also a board member and officer of the Euthanasia Society of America and the Society for the Right to Die. The author of a number of articles on abortion and family planning, she was frequently a representative at conferences in the United States and abroad.

From the guide to the Papers, 1959-1975, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)