Born probably on January 25, 1852 (although town records say 1851), in Pembroke, Massachusetts, Zilpha Smith grew up in East Boston (now part of Boston). She graduated from the Girls╒ High and Normal School of Boston in 1868. After working as a telegrapher for a time, she took on the demanding job of revising the index of the Suffolk County probate court. In 1879 she became registrar of the newly organized Associated Charities of Boston, in which the city╒s principal social welfare agencies had been consolidated. It was her task to realize in practical terms the theory that was the foundation of the Associated Charities and of the similar charity organization groups that soon sprang up in other cities: the confidential investigation and registration of all charity cases, the cooperation of agencies in handling them, and an emphasis on ╥friendly visiting╙ to attack the causes of poverty believed to lie in the family.
Under Smith╒s administration the Boston Associated Charities processed cases with an efficiency unmatched by similar groups. Both paid and unpaid agents were used in a system in which responsibilities were allotted by district, and she pioneered in establishing training classes for district administrators and later for agents and for volunteer friendly visitors. She also set a precedent in setting up discussion groups for agents. Representatives of charity organizations elsewhere (such as Mary Richmond of Baltimore) visited Boston frequently to study Smith╒s methods. From 1886 she held the title of general secretary, and she remained in that post until 1903, when she was succeeded by Alice Louise Lothrop.
From 1904 to 1918 Smith was associate director of the new Boston School for Social Workers. She also lectured occasionally at the New York School of Philanthropy and elsewhere, and she published several articles on organized charity work and the evolving technique of casework, to which she contributed both practically and theoretically. She died in Boston on October 12, 1926.
