helped enact laws establishing juvenile courts, allowing women to sit as judges, and passing laws protecting women in the workplace. She also worked to pass the Mothers' Pension Act in 1924, later renamed the Mothers' Allowances Act in 1937. This act provided divorced, deserted or widowed wives with guaranteed monthly income to raise children under the age of sixteen. Smith also supported anti-Asian and eugenicist politics in British Columbia, including the Women and Girls’ Protection Act of 1923, which restricted their employment by Asians. She also advocated the sterilization of the feeble-minded lest their reproduction contribute to ‘race suicide’. She accepted the racial science of her day that justified legislation efforts to "protect our own [Anglo-Canadian] race." (as cited in Kerwin, 1999, p. 95). By embracing racism and eugenics within her feminism, Smith reflected the ideals of feminists of her era. She joined the cabinet of Premier John Oliver in 1921 as minister without portfolio, but resigned after eight months as she felt that the rules of cabinet solidarity restricted her independence and she was never assigned to a dedicated portfolio. In February 1928, she served as Acting Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, the first woman to hold the position of Speaker in the British Empire. She was defeated in the 1928 election that brought down the Liberal government. In 1929, she was appointed Canada's delegate to the International Labour Organization conference in Geneva. She served as president of the BC Liberal Party in the early 1930s until her death due to a stroke in 1933 at the age of 72. Legacy Smith's work to promote the rights of settler women and girls has been commemorated in feminist literature and in the public after her death, but her links to eugenics and anti-Asian policies were largely downplayed until recent decades. In 2007, Smith was named a National Historic Person by the government of Canada. In Nanaimo the street Mary Ellen Drive, located between Dover Bay Road and the Island Highway, is named in her honour. Mary Ellen Smith is also commemorated by the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia recognizing her as the first female MLA in British Columbia, the first female to be appointed a minister without portfolio in the British Empire, and as a campaigner for women's rights. References British Columbia Liberal Party MLAs Canadian feminists 1861 births 1933 deaths Women MLAs in British Columbia Persons of National Historic