Katharine Smith Reynolds Johnston was born and raised in Mount Airy, North Carolina. She went to the State Regular and Industrial School (now UNCG) from 1897 to 1899 however did not graduate. Katharine left the school after the typhoid epidemic of 1899, moving to Sullins College in Bristol, Virginia, where she finished in 1902. After graduation, she acquired work as a secretary to the tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds, at the R.J. Reynolds Business in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Katharine and R.J. wed in 1905. Her marital relationship offered her access to excellent wealth with which she ended up being a kept in mind benefactor. Throughout World War I she ended up being a significant factor to the American Red Cross. Besides her philanthropy, Katharine Smith Reynolds is understood primarily for 2 other accomplishments. One is the reform of the Reynolds tobacco factory. She worked to enhance conditions for Reynolds’ employees, specifically ladies, offering hot lunches, water fountains, and a nursery for working ladies, to name a few reforms. Katherine Smith Reynolds is likewise understood for creating and developing the Reynolda Home, when a progressive, self-reliant nation farm and estate on 1,000 acres beyond Winston-Salem. Reynolda was a display for the current in farming innovations, along with offering leisure centers and a school for employees. Reynolda Home opened as a museum in 1967. After R.J. Reynolds passed away in 1918, she wed school superintendent J. Edward Johnston in 1921. She passed away from an embolism a number of days after providing kid birth at the age of 43, in 1924. The Katharine Reynolds Smith Scholarship at UNCG was developed specifically for trainees associated with social work.

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