Laura Belle Smith

Title: Laura Belle Smith
LC Subject: Universities and colleges--Faculty Portraits Clothing, Textiles, and Related Arts
Creator: Hise Studio
Description: Laura Belle Smith was an Assistant Professor in Art and in Clothing, Textiles, and Related Arts intermittently from 1946 to 1967. She was born in 1904 in Toronto, Canada. She studied at the School of Architecture of the University of Minnesota and Ohio State University, graduating from the latter in 1933 with a Bachelor of Arts in Interior Design and Watercolor Painting. She earned her Master of Arts from Ohio State University in the same field in 1934. Her thesis for her master’s degree was titled “New Materials in Interior Design.” She went on to attend the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chouinard Art Institute, and University of California in Los Angeles for further study. Before coming to OSC, she taught art at various universities in Texas, Kansas, and California. While an employee at Texas State College for Women, she was on the advisory committee for the completion of the new Student Union building. She selected furniture and completed the decorations. She was also in charge of a new demonstration house, where she “directed the interior section.” While interior design and watercolor painting were her two major fields of interest, she occasionally taught classes in fundamental and advanced design, house planning, and mechanical drawing. She was married when she came to OSC. In 1946, he was hired at $2400 for a ten month term in 1946 as an Assistant Professor of Art and Architecture. She resigned from this post the next year, and then temporarily took work in the Department of Clothing, Textiles, and Related Arts as a substitute for teachers on sabbatical leave. For roughly the next two decades, she was appointed to temporary positions in the CTRA department as permanent staff members resigned, while OSC worked to fill their positions. They considered this a great help, and thought of her as an “able person and good teacher.” As her husband was already on staff at OSC, Smith could not be put on permanent staff herself. Furthermore, as she only taught one area, this made scheduling difficult, and they wished to have more versatile employees on permanent staff.
Work Type: photographic prints photographs black-and-white photographs
Date: 1947
Identifier: P092:0591
Rights: In Copyright
Local Collection Name: President's Office Photographs, 1923-1998 (P 092)
Type: Image
Format: image/tiff
Set: OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center Historical Images of Oregon State University
Primary Set: OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center
Institution: Oregon State University