Louise Jordan Smith

Smith was active as an artist in Lynchburg, Virginia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

[1] A cousin of the institution's first president, William Waugh Smith,[3] she held that "the only way to develop taste in art is to study paintings frequently, seriously, and at leisure,"[4] and it was she who suggested William Merritt Chase as the artist for his formal portrait, presented to the school in 1907 by the senior class of that year.

[8][9] Furthermore, in 1893 Smith opened her lectures to the women of Lynchburg, which one source claims may have been the first organized system of adult education in Virginia.

[8] During her academic career Smith also taught French at the College, and invited prominent artists of her acquaintance to come and speak to the student body.

Smith's pupils included Georgia Weston Morgan, herself to become a prominent figure in Lynchburg's artistic scene.