the book women
Ellen S. Woodward, May F. Stafford and the Pack Horse Library Project
In the wilds of Appalachia, a group of intrepid women traveled hundreds of miles on horseback, making their way across icy creeks, muddy roads and treacherous terrain. In their packs, they were carrying books.
From 1935 to 1943, the Pack Horse Librarians, known to their rural readers as “the book women,” delivered books to more than a million Kentuckians across 48 counties.
The program was the brainchild of Ellen S. Woodward. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her as the director of work relief programs for women, Ellen thought of a woman named May F. Stafford, who undertook a similar “librarian on horseback” initiative in 1913, entirely on her own. Stafford could only keep the program going for a year, however. Other people had tried to take up the mantle and bring reading material to these isolated communities, but none had been able to secure the funding.
With the help of President Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, Ellen secured employment for 1,000 women to join up as traveling pack horse librarians. She wrote of her project:
Is this a useless waste of public money? Is not such a service as this — giving new hope and interest to the woman needing employment and saving that family from disintegration and despair — of lasting value to the community?
The librarians quickly realized the specific reading needs of the rural Kentuckians they served. Women requested recipe books, quilting patterns and religious writing. The children loved Mark Twain and Robinson Crusoe. Men asked for history books and newspapers.
“Let the book lady leave us something to read on Sundays, and at night when we get through hoeing the corn,” one child asked his local librarian. Another librarian recalled a visit to a rural school:
‘Bring me a book to read,’ is the cry of every child as he runs to meet the librarian with whom he has become acquainted. Not a certain book, but any kind of book. The child has read none of them.
When old newspapers or tattered magazines proved too delicate to transport, the “book women” pasted clippings into scrapbooks and created binders of articles on oft-requested topics. Even those who couldn’t read found solace in a visit from the Pack Horse Library; riders remembered sharing illustrated stories and picture books with illiterate constituents.
In 1943, the Pack Horse Library initiative, along with the WPA. America went to war, and the librarians went back to ordinary life. But “the book women” forever shaped the communities they served, and the legacy of traveling librarians still persists. Today, the Kentucky library system sponsors 75 bookmobiles, more than any other state.
More on 🏇:
Horse-Riding Librarians of the Depression, Smithsonian Magazine
The Women Who Brought Literacy to Southern Families, National Trust for Historic Preservation
The Women Who Ride Miles on Horseback to Deliver Books, Atlas Obscura
The Book Women of Kentucky, JSTOR
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Such an interesting topic. I enjoyed The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes, a fictional version inspired by these women.
Re your socials, have you considered Bluesky? I just hopped on recently and it really is very similar to the Twitter of old. lissaj.bsky.social