Erminnie A. (Erminnie Adele) Smith

Born in New York in 1836, Erminnie Adele Platt Smith studied at Troy Female Seminary and later continued scientific work in Germany, especially in mineralogy and crystallography. She went on to build an unusual career that crossed geology, linguistics, and anthropology at a time when few women were welcomed into those fields.

She is best remembered for her research on Haudenosaunee, especially Iroquois language, traditions, and stories. Working with the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology, she published studies including Myths of the Iroquois, and her field-based approach has led later scholars to describe her as an early pioneer of ethnographic research.

Smith also broke barriers in the scientific world: she was the first woman elected to the New York Academy of Sciences. She died in 1886, but her work remains a valuable record of Indigenous language and tradition and an important chapter in the history of women in American scholarship.