She was a leader in the Wesleyan-Holiness movement, preaching the doctrine of entire sanctification throughout Methodist camp meetings across the world.

[2] Smith was the eldest of the thirteen children of enslaved parents Samuel Berry and Mariam Matthews in Long Green, Maryland, a small town in Baltimore County.

[5] Having had only three and a half months of formal schooling, Amanda went to work near York, Pennsylvania, as the servant of a widow with five children.

[citation needed] Smith worked as a cook and a washerwoman to provide for herself and her daughter after her husband was killed in the American Civil War.

[6] Smith always wore a plain poke bonnet and a brown or black Quaker wrapper, and carried a carpetbag suitcase.

[3] Funds were sent by the Ladies Negro's Friend Society in Birmingham, U.K., with which she had established a relationship during her stay in England.

Two years after Smith's death another fire broke out in the home, killing two girls, and it was closed for good.