Two Girls Named Smith
American television situation comedy series (1951)

Two Girls Named Smith is an American television situation comedy that was broadcast on ABC from January 20, 1951, through October 13, 1951.
Premise
Frances Smith and Barbara Smith were cousins who moved to New York City from Omaha hoping to become a fashion designer and a singer, respectively. They shared an apartment at 514 East 51st Street. Their landlord, Mr. Basmany, became advisor and friend to them.
Cast
Foch replaced Garner in several episodes in July and August; Henderson appeared in the role after Garner left the show in September.
Production
Richard Lewis produced Two Girls Named Smith. Its directors included Charles Durbin, Mervyn Nelson, and Cort Steen. Peter Barry was one of the writers, and Jacques Press provided the music.
The show was broadcast on Saturdays at noon Eastern Time.
“Two Girls Named Smith” enters the record as american television situation comedy series (1951). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Girls, Named and Smith can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Two Girls Named Smith” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Girls, Named and Smith provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q130377370. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1951.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Two Girls Named Smith”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Two Girls Named Smith primary sources, Two Girls Named Smith archive and Girls research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Two Girls Named Smith”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Two Girls Named Smith” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.