Born: 26 April 1836, United States
Died: 9 June 1886
Country most active: Canada, United States
Also known as: Erminnie Adelle Platt
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Erminie Adelle Smith (1836-1886), was an American ethnologist, born in Marcellus, N. Y. She was educated at Willard Seminary in Troy, and continued her studies abroad. She was an active public lecturer on scientific subjects, and in 1878 was engaged by the Smithsonian Institution to make a study of the languages and customs of the Iroquois Indians.
In order that she might gain the most intimate acquaintance with their institutions, she became a member of one of their tribes in Canada, the Tuscaroras, spent two summers with them, and obtained and classified 15,000 words of their dialects. She was author of an Iroqouis-English dictionary and a volume of essays and poems.