August 29, 1995 Contact: Barbara McKenna (408/459-2495)

RENOWNED HISTORIAN PAGE SMITH AND ARTIST ELOISE PICKARD SMITH DIE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Page Smith, a nationally known historian, died early Monday morning two months after being diagnosed with terminal leukemia. He was 77. Smith, founding provost at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a professor emeritus of history, died less than two days after his wife, Eloise Pickard Smith. A noted artist and former director of the California Arts Council, Pickard Smith died August 26 from kidney cancer. She was 74. The couple, who had been married for 53 years, lived on a seven-and-a-half-acre farm outside of Santa Cruz.

Page Smith was a World War II Purple Heart veteran educated at Dartmouth College (B.A., history, 1940) and Harvard University (M.A. in history, 1948; Ph.D. in history, 1951). Smith began his teaching career as a research associate at the Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg, Va., in 1951. He taught history at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg and continued his career at UC Los Angeles, where he served as a professor of history from 1953 to 1964. He came to UC Santa Cruz in 1964 as the founding provost of Cowell College.

Smith retired from UC Santa Cruz in 1973, but continued to be active as both a scholar and an advocate for the homeless. He was a cofounder (with longtime colleague Paul Lee) of the William James Association in Santa Cruz, which was instrumental in establishing a homeless shelter as well as the Homeless Garden Project. Smith was also a cofounder of the Penny University and the Prison Arts Project. Established in 1974 and still thriving, the Penny University presents weekly lectures and discussions for the community for free.

Smith was a prolific writer, authoring more than twenty books, including an award-winning biography of John Adams and an eight-volume "people's history" of the United States (published by McGraw-Hill). His most recent books are Democracy on Trial: The Japanese-American Evacuation and Relocation in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995); Rediscovering Christianity: A History of Modern Democracy and the Christian Ethic (New York : St. Martin's Press, 1994); and Killing the Spirit: Higher Education in America (New York, N.Y.: Viking, 1990). He was also coauthor (with UCSC professor emeritus of biology Charles Daniel) of The Chicken Book: Being an Inquiry into the Rise and Fall, Use and Abuse, Triumph and Tragedy of Gallus Domesticus (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975).

In September 1988, Smith began writing a weekly column on aging for Chronicle Features titled, "Time to Live." The syndicated column, which also appeared under the title of "Coming of Age," was published in papers across the country, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Arizona Republic, the Dallas Morning News, and the Santa Cruz County Sentinel.

The lasting influence of both Page Smith and Eloise Pickard Smith on UC Santa Cruz is tangible at Cowell College where the Page Smith Library stands across the courtyard from the Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery.

Eloise Pickard Smith was appointed director of the California Arts Council in 1976 by then-Governor Jerry Brown. While on the council she launched an outreach program to bring arts to California state prisoners. In 1942, shortly before her marriage to Smith, she won one of five national scholarships to the Art Students League in New York City. Pickard Smith created her art using paint and found objects. Her artwork was well known throughout the state and some of her later pieces are considered to be masterworks. In January, a retrospective of her works was exhibited simultaneously in six Santa Cruz galleries.

The couple are survived by four children: Anne Easley, Ellen Davidson, and Eliot Smith, all of Santa Cruz, and Carter Smith of Nahant, Massachusetts; seven grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. A joint service is planned.

A memorial service is planned for Saturday, September 9, at 10:30 a.m., at Calvary Episcopal Church, 532 Center St., Santa Cruz.

In lieu of flowers, family members have asked for contributions to the Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High St., Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, or the Hospice Caring Project of Santa Cruz County, 6851 Soquel Dr., Aptos, CA, 95003.

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