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Katharine Smith (1880–1924) was thirty years younger than R.J. Reynolds. She was born at her great-grandfather’s house in rural Stokes County, North Carolina, and later moved to nearby Mount Airy, a thriving market and resort town at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her father prospered in tobacco and real estate and provided a large Victorian home for his wife and seven children. Known as “Kate,” she attended a private girl’s school, followed by a co-ed public school. A bright student, Smith continued her studies at Greensboro’s State Normal and Industrial School, which promised all students they would qualify for paid positions as teachers when they finished. Unfortunately, she contracted measles and malaria and did not graduate, enrolling instead at Sullins College in Bristol, Virginia, more a finishing school for genteel white girls, to complete her college education. A classmate recalls Katharine Smith declaring prophetically: “When I marry I shall go to Europe on my wedding trip. … And then I shall buy a great estate.” [2]
Upon graduation in 1902, Smith returned home to Mount Airy where she focused on painting and even taught a few lessons. When R.J. Reynolds’s mother died the following year, Smith penned him, her cousin once removed, a condolence note. Much moved, he invited her to join him and two other young female cousins on a trip north to Baltimore, Atlantic City, and New York. Soon after that, she moved to Winston and entered his employment as his personal secretary, where she assisted with his correspondence and finances. He taught her investment strategies and listened to her marketing suggestions. Despite their age discrepancy, they were a good match, and they married in February 1905 at her family home in Mount Airy.
On their honeymoon, Katharine and R.J. Reynolds traveled extensively through Europe for fourteen weeks. They visited almost all the capital cities—London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, and Vienna, along with other cultural centers such as Florence, Venice, and Dresden. Their presence in London was noted in the New York Herald: “among the American passengers on the Baltic now stopping at the Carlton Hotel, London.” [3] The experience expanded the horizons for both of them. In Paris, Katharine ordered two elegant, formal “Belle Epoque” dresses from Compagnie Lyonnaise, which are in the costume collection at Reynolda House. Both are floor length and heavily embellished with lace. [3]
At Pirou’s premises the Reynoldses were photographed; two poses of her are extant, one three-quarters from behind looking over her shoulder, the other frontal. Either Pirou, or more likely an assistant, copied the latter for an oil painting. In it she is shown bust-length with her head tilted slightly toward the viewer’s right, wearing a pink dress that reveals gracefully sloping shoulders. At her neck is a double strand of choker pearls. Her curly brown hair is piled high on her head in the fashion of the day, and her deep blue eyes look assuredly toward the observer. Her expression is somewhat wistful, even more so in the painting than in the photograph. Another difference between the two versions is the translation of the delicate white lace of her dress into a soft filmy fabric that does not distract from her face.
Upon their return home, Katharine and R.J. took up their respective roles as one of the richest couples in North Carolina. While he continued to make a great deal of money, she set about redecorating and extending the garden of their Victorian city house. She bore four children, two boys and two girls, over a period of six years, and became an active clubwoman and gracious hostess. [4] Despite all these commitments and occasional bouts with poor health, the family traveled extensively by rail and automobile. But perhaps her biggest accomplishment was the planning and building of Reynolda—the “great estate” she had wished for as a college student.
Katharine Smith Reynolds’s vision for Reynolda was a healthful and commodious home for her family and a model farm that practiced modern scientific agriculture, complemented by a sizeable lake, a nine-hole golf course, and formal gardens. She envisioned a nearby village that included a church, schools for black and white children, and largely segregated residential areas for her employees. She began the venture by buying parcels of exhausted farmland three miles from downtown and by hiring engineers, landscape designers, and architects as the project grew. Although she had the full support of her husband and his resources behind her, there is no doubt that this was her endeavor. [5]
Just as Reynolda was nearing completion, R.J. Reynolds fell ill, hospitalized for long periods in Philadelphia and Baltimore with what is now believed to have been pancreatic cancer. Nevertheless, the family enjoyed Christmas 1917 in the newly finished “bungalow.” Seven months later he passed away. Despite this great loss, his widow continued to run the estate. In the summer of 1919, she hired as superintendent for the school twenty-five-year-old J. Edward Johnston, a graduate of Davidson College who had served two years overseas during World War I. Intelligent, charming, handsome, and athletic, Johnston soon won Katharine’s affections. They were married in June 1921. They lived happily together, spending one nine-month period with three of her children in New York City, but Reynolda was always considered home. Sadly, Katharine died in March 1924 from an embolism, three days after giving birth to a son.
Notes:
[1] R.J. Reynolds to Katharine Smith, undated, 1905, New Hoffman House file, quoted in Michele Gillespie, Katharine and R.J. Reynolds: Partners of Fortune in the Making of the New South (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2012), 129.
[2] See Gillespie, Katharine and R.J. Reynolds, 63–76, and Smith, quoted in Betty Ann Ragland Stanback, “Kate Smith Reynolds,” [North Carolina College for Women] Almunae News 52, no. 3, (April 1964), 3.
[3] See Ruth Mullen, The Paris Gowns in the Reynolda House Costume Collection (Winston-Salem, NC: Reynolda House Museum of American Art, 1995).
[4] See Gillespie, Katharine and R.J. Reynolds.
[5] See Gillespie, Katharine and R.J. Reynolds and Catherine Howett, A World of Her Own Making: Katharine Smith Reynolds and the Landscape of Reynolda (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007).
ProvenanceBarbara B. Millhouse, New York. [1]
Notes:
[1] Loan Agreement.
Exhibition History
DepartmentHistoric House
Katharine Smith Reynolds
Artist
Eugène Pirou
(1841 - 1909)
Date1905
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsFrame: 33 1/8 x 29 1/2 in. (84.1 x 74.9 cm)
Canvas: 24 1/4 x 20 in. (61.6 x 50.8 cm)
SignedEug. PiRou
Credit LineGift of Barbara B. Millhouse
CopyrightPublic Domain
Object number2023.4.2
DescriptionIt is a common tradition for a couple to commemorate their marriage by having portraits made. While on their honeymoon in Europe in 1905, Katharine Smith and Richard Joshua Reynolds sat for their portraits in front of a camera at the Paris studio of the highly regarded and successful photographer Eugène Pirou; in turn, these photographs were then copied onto canvas. Katharine Smith (1880–1924) was thirty years younger than R.J. Reynolds. She was born at her great-grandfather’s house in rural Stokes County, North Carolina, and later moved to nearby Mount Airy, a thriving market and resort town at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her father prospered in tobacco and real estate and provided a large Victorian home for his wife and seven children. Known as “Kate,” she attended a private girl’s school, followed by a co-ed public school. A bright student, Smith continued her studies at Greensboro’s State Normal and Industrial School, which promised all students they would qualify for paid positions as teachers when they finished. Unfortunately, she contracted measles and malaria and did not graduate, enrolling instead at Sullins College in Bristol, Virginia, more a finishing school for genteel white girls, to complete her college education. A classmate recalls Katharine Smith declaring prophetically: “When I marry I shall go to Europe on my wedding trip. … And then I shall buy a great estate.” [2]
Upon graduation in 1902, Smith returned home to Mount Airy where she focused on painting and even taught a few lessons. When R.J. Reynolds’s mother died the following year, Smith penned him, her cousin once removed, a condolence note. Much moved, he invited her to join him and two other young female cousins on a trip north to Baltimore, Atlantic City, and New York. Soon after that, she moved to Winston and entered his employment as his personal secretary, where she assisted with his correspondence and finances. He taught her investment strategies and listened to her marketing suggestions. Despite their age discrepancy, they were a good match, and they married in February 1905 at her family home in Mount Airy.
On their honeymoon, Katharine and R.J. Reynolds traveled extensively through Europe for fourteen weeks. They visited almost all the capital cities—London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, and Vienna, along with other cultural centers such as Florence, Venice, and Dresden. Their presence in London was noted in the New York Herald: “among the American passengers on the Baltic now stopping at the Carlton Hotel, London.” [3] The experience expanded the horizons for both of them. In Paris, Katharine ordered two elegant, formal “Belle Epoque” dresses from Compagnie Lyonnaise, which are in the costume collection at Reynolda House. Both are floor length and heavily embellished with lace. [3]
At Pirou’s premises the Reynoldses were photographed; two poses of her are extant, one three-quarters from behind looking over her shoulder, the other frontal. Either Pirou, or more likely an assistant, copied the latter for an oil painting. In it she is shown bust-length with her head tilted slightly toward the viewer’s right, wearing a pink dress that reveals gracefully sloping shoulders. At her neck is a double strand of choker pearls. Her curly brown hair is piled high on her head in the fashion of the day, and her deep blue eyes look assuredly toward the observer. Her expression is somewhat wistful, even more so in the painting than in the photograph. Another difference between the two versions is the translation of the delicate white lace of her dress into a soft filmy fabric that does not distract from her face.
Upon their return home, Katharine and R.J. took up their respective roles as one of the richest couples in North Carolina. While he continued to make a great deal of money, she set about redecorating and extending the garden of their Victorian city house. She bore four children, two boys and two girls, over a period of six years, and became an active clubwoman and gracious hostess. [4] Despite all these commitments and occasional bouts with poor health, the family traveled extensively by rail and automobile. But perhaps her biggest accomplishment was the planning and building of Reynolda—the “great estate” she had wished for as a college student.
Katharine Smith Reynolds’s vision for Reynolda was a healthful and commodious home for her family and a model farm that practiced modern scientific agriculture, complemented by a sizeable lake, a nine-hole golf course, and formal gardens. She envisioned a nearby village that included a church, schools for black and white children, and largely segregated residential areas for her employees. She began the venture by buying parcels of exhausted farmland three miles from downtown and by hiring engineers, landscape designers, and architects as the project grew. Although she had the full support of her husband and his resources behind her, there is no doubt that this was her endeavor. [5]
Just as Reynolda was nearing completion, R.J. Reynolds fell ill, hospitalized for long periods in Philadelphia and Baltimore with what is now believed to have been pancreatic cancer. Nevertheless, the family enjoyed Christmas 1917 in the newly finished “bungalow.” Seven months later he passed away. Despite this great loss, his widow continued to run the estate. In the summer of 1919, she hired as superintendent for the school twenty-five-year-old J. Edward Johnston, a graduate of Davidson College who had served two years overseas during World War I. Intelligent, charming, handsome, and athletic, Johnston soon won Katharine’s affections. They were married in June 1921. They lived happily together, spending one nine-month period with three of her children in New York City, but Reynolda was always considered home. Sadly, Katharine died in March 1924 from an embolism, three days after giving birth to a son.
Notes:
[1] R.J. Reynolds to Katharine Smith, undated, 1905, New Hoffman House file, quoted in Michele Gillespie, Katharine and R.J. Reynolds: Partners of Fortune in the Making of the New South (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2012), 129.
[2] See Gillespie, Katharine and R.J. Reynolds, 63–76, and Smith, quoted in Betty Ann Ragland Stanback, “Kate Smith Reynolds,” [North Carolina College for Women] Almunae News 52, no. 3, (April 1964), 3.
[3] See Ruth Mullen, The Paris Gowns in the Reynolda House Costume Collection (Winston-Salem, NC: Reynolda House Museum of American Art, 1995).
[4] See Gillespie, Katharine and R.J. Reynolds.
[5] See Gillespie, Katharine and R.J. Reynolds and Catherine Howett, A World of Her Own Making: Katharine Smith Reynolds and the Landscape of Reynolda (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007).
ProvenanceBarbara B. Millhouse, New York. [1]
Notes:
[1] Loan Agreement.
Exhibition History
Status
On viewJune 19, 1980
July 30, 1980
July 9, 1980
May 5, 1980
June 17, 1980
circa 1765
