Wayland-Smith, Prudence.

Prudence Wayland-Smith (1908-1995) was a social activist dedicated to migrant and prison reform for over 50 years.

Born in 1908, Prudence Wayland-Smith was a descendant of the Oneida Community and a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). She graduated from Curtis High School on Staten Island in 1925 and went on to the Women's College at Brown University.

In 1934 Wayland-Smith was elected president of the Oneida-Kenwood-Sherrill League of Women Voters. Later, she became chairwoman of the Oneida-Kenwood-Sherrill Migrant Committee. Much of the work that the committee carried out was in response to the needs of migrant workers who came up from Florida and other southern states in the summer months to help plant and harvest crops in Oneida County and Madison County in central New York. Migrant families often lived in horrible conditions in labor camps and their children had little or no education. The migrant committee not only worked for better housing conditions and labor rights in migrant camps, they also established day-care centers and summer schools for migrant children so that they could get a basic education. The committee also established a scholarship fund for migrant children going on to college. Prudence remained an active member of the League and the Migrant Committee until the late 1970s when the committee disbanded due to the fact that agriculture had become more mechanized and labor camps were closing.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Wayland-Smith dedicated most of her time to prison reform in local correctional facilities in Oneida and Madison County. As a church leader she brought together other Quaker women to visit inmates, correspond, coordinate Alternatives to Violence workshops, and establish other education programs for prisoners, while also pushing for reform of the treatment of prisoners and conditions within the prisons themselves. Following the Quaker belief that there was goodness in everyone, Wayland-Smith worked to make sure that inmates would have a way to survive once they returned to society. She worked continually in local prisons up until her death at the age of 86 in 1995.

From the guide to the Prudence Wayland-Smith Papers, 1925-1994, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)