APPALACHIA'S MUDDY INFO-HIGHWAY
APPALACHIA, 1935 — These words are delivered to your screen by everyday miracle. Cables and routers. Nodes and hubs and networks. Together they put any book within your reach — instantly — no matter where you live.
But during the Depression, when highways were made of mud and not megabytes, a remarkable info-highway reached into the heart of Appalachia.
“It’s a long way to Harlan,” the song goes, “a long way to Hazard.” But instead of going that long way “just to get a little brew,” 200 women, mounted on horseback, braved the backwoods of Eastern Kentucky to deliver a more precious commodity — books.
Throughout hills and hollows, they were called “book ladies” or “book women.” By any name, these “packsaddle librarians” were a lifeline to “the Outside.” The books and magazines they delivered kept spirits afloat in “times so hard you couldn’t hardly crack ‘em.”
Even before the Depression, rural Kentucky was an island on the land. Highways could not reach backwoods hamlets with hardscrabble names — Paintsville and Cutshin, Jeremiah and Viper. Hand-built shacks had no electricity or running water, few neighbors, and no books, not even a Bible.
For decades, traveling libraries had served parts of rural America but the Depression closed all but a few. Then in 1934, a preacher in Leslie County offered to spread his own books around if anyone would carry them. A few librarians began short treks. A year later, FDR started the Works Progress Administration.
Along with building roads and bridges, the WPA infused life into American culture. WPA writers penned state guidebooks. WPA artists painted murals. The WPA Theater Project supported young playwrights. But only one project featured home delivery.
From its single library in Leslie County, the Packhorse Library project grew into a network that spanned 10,000 square miles of Appalachia. Some 50,000 families and 155 schools received visits from a “book lady.”
Hillbillies? White trash? Forget the stereotypes. Appalachians had a hunger for books that our info-glutted age cannot imagine.
“The intelligence of the Kentucky mountaineer is keen," one newspaper wrote. "He grasped and clung to the Pack Horse Library idea with all the tenacity of one starved for learning."
One teacher recalled a visit from the “book lady”: “I must have had 45 children in a one-room school and when she would come they would be so tickled. There weren’t many books but we would pass them around and try to let as many children read them as possible.”
Women slaving in small cabins loved magazines filled with recipes and quilt patterns. Those who could not read preferred illustrated books. The Bible was another favorite, and everyone loved Mark Twain.
But beyond the written word, packhorse librarians conveyed a deeper message. Ideas matter, stories matter, and people matter.
“All in all, the ‘book lady’ takes on many aspects of an angel in disguise,” the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote. “She comforts the sick and aids the distressed as she goes on her way.”
WPA rules required book ladies to make two 100+ mile runs each month. Librarians had to hire their own horse or mule — 50 cents a day. Each animal could carry 100 books.
Slogging deep, deeper into the hills, packhorses forded creeks whose rushing water sometimes rose to their saddlebags. They crossed rickety bridges, slipped and slid on steep, muddy trails. One woman’s mule died en route, forcing her to walk 18 miles out. Another’s feet froze in her stirrups. Cliffsides forced women to dismount and walk beside their animals. Packhorse librarians persisted.
“I never did measure the territory,” remembered Grace Caudill Lucas, “but it seemed like a whole lot of miles. I covered Bear Creek, and either Brush Creek or Wide Creek, Burton Road, Tallega, and the schools of Primrose, Musica, and Oliver.” Lucas took the job to support her two children. She and others made $28 a month, about $500 in today’s currency.
When word of the project spread, newspapers and urban libraries called for book donations. PTAs and DARs funded book drives. Books were soon stockpiled in Appalachia’s few existing libraries, spilling over into churches and community centers. Librarians patched torn covers, and turned old Christmas cards into bookmarks, cheese boxes into card catalogs, bent license plates into bookends.
During eight years on the trail, packhorse books reached 100,000 readers. No one knows how many lives were changed, spirits saved. But one angry man suggested the power of the written word.
Seems the man’s daughter had gotten a few books during the book lady’s last visit. “I can’t get my gal to do nothin’ but read,” the man griped. “My cornfield needs hoein’ and settin’ in a corner with her nose in a book ain’t gonna get them weeds out!”
In 1943, with the war providing full employment, FDR ended the WPA, closing down Appalachia’s Packhorse Libraries. Within a few years, bookmobiles picked up the slack. The book ladies were all but forgotten, but they remembered.
One woman never forgot the old grandmother in a hillside cabin. She came out holding a letter, received three weeks back, unread because the woman could not read. The book lady read the letter aloud, announcing the birth of a grandson named after the woman’s late husband. The old woman burst into tears.
Recovering her composure, the woman chose a few picture books from the pack. Then the book lady saddled up and rode on.