Smith, born in 1910, in New Orleans, Louisiana, whose father was a railway telegraphist, commenced his working life killing armadillos and selling their hides.
Thereafter he was employed variously as a vacuum cleaner salesman, a waiter at the Galvez Hotel in Galveston, Texas, the advertising manager at Godchaux's Department Store in New Orleans, a magazine publisher in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and a soft-shoe dancer and did some farm labor organizing for the Farmer's Union and the Southern Tenant Farmer's Union, while photographing for several Southern newspapers; later he became nationally known for his freelance photographs of sharecroppers used for Roy Stryker's Farm Security Administration project.
[1] Smith also worked as a freelance photographer for several other publications, including Time, The Saturday Evening Post, Paris Match, Ladies Home Journal, American Heritage, Pic, Holiday and Vogue.
In 1955 Edward Steichen selected his Depression-era photograph of a backwoods girl singing, surrounded by other children, for the world-touring Museum of Modern Art exhibition The Family of Man, seen by 9 million visitors.
He was survived by his partner, Mara Vivat, who was also an accomplished photographer,[9] a sister, Evelyn Monroe, prominent Depression-era union activist of Laguna Beach,[10] three sons, Steven, Terrence and Michael, a daughter, Sharon Hernandez Smith, two stepdaughters, Susan Van Kleek and Nancy Gilbert, and several grandchildren.