SMITH, Maria Wilkins. 21.6.1884 — 29.12.1973. U.S. Linguist. Daughter of William Horner Smith (d. 1889) and Henrietta Constantia Wilkins. Apparently the same M.W.S. who studied at Bryn Mawr (1906) and passed Ph.D. 1929 at University of Pennsylvania (under Kent). She was Instructor, then Assistant Professor of Latin at Temple University in Philadelphia. No sign of activivities after 1934, after 1941 no longer member of Linguistic Association.
Publications: Diss. Studies in the Syntax of the Gathas of Zarathushtra together with Text, Translation, and Notes. 160 p. Language dissertations 4. Philadephia 1929.
– “The IE. Root *meik̑-: *meig̑- and Avestan mīzǝ̄n”, Language 4, 1928, 178-180; “Avestan vyānay-, vyānā-, vyāne”, Language 9, 1933, 85-87.
– Reviews in JAOS.
Sources: J.S. Falk, Women, Language and Linguistics: Three American Stories from the First Half of the 20th Century. 1999 (Google online); birth and parents (if she is the same) in P.S. Howe, Mayflower Pilgrim Descendants. 1921, 201, exact date of death in peoplelegacy.com.