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Hannah Whitall Smith (1832-1911), American evangelist, writer, and reformer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She grew up in a strict Quaker home and from childhood had a passion for religion and introspection. Hannah married Robert Pearsall Smith (1827-1899) in 1851 and settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania. In 1864 they moved to Millville, New Jersey, where they joined the Wesleyan-based Holiness movement. They had two daughters, Mary (1864-1945) and Alys (1867-1951), and one son, Logan Pearsall (1865-1946). In the late 1860's Hannah began preaching and writing on religious subjects, and later became involved in the temperance and suffrage movements, founding the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in 1874. When Mary married English barrister Frank Costelloe in 1888, the family moved to England where Hannah continued her work. It was there that Alys married philosopher Bertrand Russell. Alys joined her mother in working for women's rights and had a keen interest in political issues.
Meanwhile Mary's marriage to Frank Costelloe failed soon after the birth of their second daughter Karin. Mary left England to tour the museums and cathedrals of Europe with her future husband, art critic Bernard Berenson. Mary's daughters Ray and Karin stayed in England with their father and thrived under the influence of their grandmother Hannah. Ray became the third generation of "Whitall" women to devote her life to women's issues, while Karin became a pioneer in Freudian psychoanalysis and one of Britain's first psychoanalysts. The circle of friends and relatives broadened further when Ray married into the Strachey family and Karin wed Virginia Woolf's brother Adrian Stephen.
