Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2019 - 24
ES & ARCHIVES
KENTUCKY DEPT. FOR LIBRARI
ABOVE: Book delivery by mule to a WPA-built school in Harlan.
RIGHT: Children's books were especially sought by rural
Kentucky households.
LEFT: Lacking enough books to circulate, Pack Horse Librarians
constructed their own scrapbooks from discarded materials.
JASON VANCE AT THE FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
24
BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
In response, FDR's Works Progress Administration (WPA) program set out to
put people to work. Putting people back to
work most often meant putting men back
to work, and most WPA jobs involved
heavy manual labor. Roads and schools
and parks were built; tunnels were dug;
buildings were constructed.
As the Depression intensified, men
abandoned their families, leaving many
women as heads of households. In response, WPA jobs were created that were
seen as more "seemly" for women-sewing, the creation of Braille books, work in
schools and cafeterias.
And the Pack Horse Librarians project. Book delivery? That could be accomplished by women. Never mind that it
often meant traveling by horse or mule
(or by foot) up a nearly invisible trail,
covering 18-20 miles a day. Never mind
that one Pack Horse Librarian, Mrs. Mary
Littrell, recalls rainy-day roads that were
knee-deep in mud. ("I'd have to hold my
feet out to the sides of the horse, the mud
was so deep on the roads....And the horse
would have to swim the creek when it
rained. Old Pearl took me every place that
I wanted to go.")
It's no surprise that Kentucky was
home to one of the earliest pack horse library programs: the state was notoriously
under-booked at the start of the Depression, with 63% of its residents having no
access to public libraries. The first Pack
Horse Library program was established in
1934 in Leslie County. Within two years,
nearby Harlan, Clay, Whitley, Jackson,
Owsley and Lee Counties had their own
programs.
In their young-readers book "Down
Cut Shin Creek," Kathi Appelt and Jeanne
http://www.BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2019
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2019
Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2019 - Intro
Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2019 - Cover1
Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2019 - Cover2
Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2019 - 3
Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2019 - 4
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Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2019 - Cover3
Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2019 - Cover4
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