Editing Paul Jordan-Smith (section)

==Life and ministry==

Paul Jordan Smith (his name was not hyphenated until later in life; see below) was born in [[Wytheville, Virginia]]. His father, John Wesley Smith, was a Southern Methodist minister who dreamed of starting a college and invested in land in [[Dade County, Georgia]], outside [[Chattanooga, Tennessee]]. His wife (the former Lucy Jordan) and son joined him there in 1891, but the venture failed and the family returned to Virginia.<ref name="pjs">{{cite book|last1=Jordan-Smith|first1=Paul|title=The Road I Came|date=1960|publisher=Caxton Printers|location=Caldwell, Idaho}}</ref>

While a student at [[Emory and Henry College]], Paul Jordan Smith secretly married Ethel Sloan Park in September 1904. Their daughter Lucille Isabella (Isabel Jordan) Smith was born in August 1905.<ref>http://www.parkfamilyreunion.net/Assets/ESPtoPJS.pdf Park Family Network.</ref> He graduated from U.S. Grant University in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1906. A local Unitarian minister recommended that he study for the ministry, and although admitted to Harvard Divinity School he enrolled in the more affordable Ryder Divinity School of the Universalist [[Lombard College]] in [[Galesburg, Illinois|Galesburg]], where he received a bachelor of divinity degree in 1908.<ref name="pjs" /> {{rp|170–187}}

He served briefly as a minister at Universalist churches in [[Unionville, Missouri]], and Kansas City and developed a reputation as an outstanding lecturer on science and religion. He moved to Chicago in 1910, where he worked at the Independent Religious Society and later got a job as a minister and ran a settlement house. He also enrolled part-time in graduate classes at the [[University of Chicago]] and developed a broad acquaintance among both literary and social activist circles, including lawyer [[Clarence Darrow]], activist [[Emma Goldman]], novelist [[John Cowper Powys]], editor and publisher [[Margaret C. Anderson|Margaret Anderson]], writer [[Floyd Dell]], [[Little Theatre Movement|Chicago Little Theatre]] founder Maurice Browne, and bookseller George Millard. In the process, he became a passionate book collector and decided on a career in literature. Jordan Smith also developed an interest in art through visits to the [[Art Institute of Chicago]].<ref name="pjs"  />{{rp|181–220}}<ref name="socal">Crosse, John. [http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-schindlers-and-westons-and-walt.html "The Schindlers and Westons and the Walt Whitman School and Connections to Sarah Bixby Smith and Paul Jordan-Smith"]. Southern California Architectural History website.</ref>

In 1913 his wife Ethel divorced him and his mother died. After a few months in the South, he traveled to [[Berkeley, California]] with letters of introduction, filled in for a minister in [[Eureka, California|Eureka]] in the summer of 1914, and enrolled as a doctoral student and teaching fellow in the English Department at the [[University of California, Berkeley]].<ref name="socal" />  He was hired as a substitute minister of the [[First Unitarian Church (Berkeley, California)|First Unitarian Church of Berkeley]] after Arthur Maxson Smith resigned when his wife, the heiress [[Sarah Bixby Smith]], caught him having an affair and sued for divorce. Paul Jordan-Smith became romantically involved with Sarah, a writer, and their involvement became  public, to their dismay, before the divorce was final. It was around this time that Paul assumed the hyphenated Jordan-Smith as his last name, in part to disguise his liaison with Sarah, which he feared might damage his academic career. Despite this precaution, the English Department—then headed by [[Charles Mills Gayley]]—voted not to renew his fellowship, putting an end to his plans for an academic career.<ref name="pjs" />{{rp|272}}
[[File:Signatur Paul Jordan Smith in Hickey, Memoirs.jpg|thumb|Signature of American Unitarian Minister, writer and book collector Paul Jordan-Smith (1885-1971), in Hickey, Memoirs, publ. 1913-1925 ("Paul Jordan-Smith Eureka")]]
Jordan-Smith married Sarah on March 30, 1916, immediately after her divorce came through.<ref>"Divorced Wife of Pastor Weds Successor in Pulpit." ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'', May 31, 1916, p. II-8</ref> The couple then moved with Sarah's children to her former home in Claremont, California, which had been rented to a school for boys. In 1917, the school's lease ended and they began renovating the house back into a private residence, which they named [[Erewhon]] after the Samuel Butler novel. Around this time, they met and subsequently became friends with one of Sarah's cousins, the photographer [[Edward Weston]], who made several photographic portraits of Jordan-Smith.<ref name="socal" /> Eventually, the couple moved to a mansion on Los Feliz Boulevard in Los Angeles, where Jordan-Smith had a detached library and writing studio on the property.<ref name="starr">Starr, Kevin. ''Material Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920s''. Oxford University Press, 1990.</ref>{{rp|318}}

Though Jordan-Smith did not have to work (thanks to Sarah's inherited wealth), he lectured around southern California, at women's clubs such as the [[Friday Morning Club]] (of which Sarah was later president), at the [[Ebell of Los Angeles|Ebell Club]], and elsewhere. He also taught courses on English and American literature at the new [[University of California]] Extension program in Los Angeles. Encouraged by some of the philanthropists who attended his talks, he took on leadership of the recently formed [[People's Council of America for Peace and Democracy]], an antiwar organization.<ref name="pjs" />{{rp|315}} The group did well until its leaders came under attack when the U.S. government began to crack down on antiwar opposition through the [[Espionage Act of 1917]]. To avoid prosecution, Jordan-Smith was obliged to give up making antiwar speeches and to swear that he did not have any German affiliations or friends.<ref name="pjs" />{{rp|315–322}}

Jordan-Smith served for a time as the educational director of the Walt Whitman School, a progressive secondary school founded in East Los Angeles in 1919.<ref name="socal" />

Jordan-Smith eventually left Sarah for his cousin Dorothy and the couple divorced.<ref name="starr" />{{rp|318}} He died on June 17, 1971.<ref name="bixbyobit1">[https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/14/archives/sarah-bixby-smith-authors-aorks-included-a-book-on-amgrlcanization.html "Sarah Bixby Smith: Author's Work Included a Book on Americanization"], ''The New York Times'', September 14, 1935.</ref><ref name="latimesobit">[https://web.archive.org/web/20121105102652/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/699077452.html?dids=699077452:699077452&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Jun+18,+1971&author=&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&desc=Ex-Times+Book+Editor+Paul+Jordan-Smith+Dies&pqatl=google "Ex-Times Book Editor Paul Jordan-Smith Dies"], ''Los Angeles Times'', June 18, 1971.</ref>

Jordan-Smith had three children. His son Wilbur Jordan Smith was head of UCLA Library's Department of Special Collections from 1951 to 1971, and Wilbur's son Paul Jordan-Smith helped D.M. Dooling found [[Parabola (magazine)|''Parabola'']] magazine and served as its Epicycle editor.