[♪♪♪] NARRATOR: As a young girl of five, with her father teaching her how to ride a horse, little did Rose Farmer imagine that one day she would grow up and meet the First Lady of the United States.

Dressed in riding boots, with a satchel of books at her feet, Rose would represent a group of women, Kentucky women, who would lead a force that brought books and education to the people of Appalachia.

In the midst of a depression, these women found the courage and strength to ride horses and mules through flooded creeks and mountain trails, delivering books to schools and homes.

Each became a welcome face throughout the mountains and earned the title 'book woman'.

[♪♪♪] These were the Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia.

♪ Book woman, whoa!

♪ ♪ Book woman, whoa!

♪ ♪ I go through a trial by fire To bring food for your soul ♪ ♪ There's no easy road ♪ ♪ There's no easy road ♪ ♪ I go through a trial by fire To bring food for your soul ♪ [♪♪♪] ANNOUNCER: This program is funded in part by a grant from the Carolyn Tassie Memorial Fund.

NARRATOR: In the 1930s, as much of the nation fought to recover from a devastating depression that would earn the title, the Great Depression, the new Franklin Roosevelt administration sought ways not only to get Americans immediately back to work, but to use these new jobs to educate and expand culture throughout the nation through arts and libraries.

This is at a time where some statistics put it at 40% of folks were unemployed.

So, this was a desperate time, right?

We were at the height of the Great Depression, we needed to put folks back to work.

Eleanor Roosevelt was very influential in reminding folks that we need to get women to work also, and they can also be contributors to the household.

NARRATOR: Led by the First Lady, the Works Progress Administration, or the WPA, discovered an idea, begun in Kentucky, to teach people the power of libraries, and the benefits that borrowing books would bring to their lives.

Twenty years earlier, schools in Appalachia, like the Hindman Settlement School, began sending their people by horseback to share books with the people of their region.

In 1916, Berea College came up with the first bookmobile or book wagon, hauling books into surrounding counties.

You know, if you can't bring Mohammed to the mountain, bring the mountain to Mohammed, or the reverse kind of fits here.

If you can't get the people to the library, then let's get the library to the people.

That's a very innovative idea.

And I think the WPA was innovative in all aspects.

NARRATOR: Perhaps, the biggest role model for the WPA was May Stafford of Paintsville.

In 1913, May came up with the idea of loading up her saddlebags and riding her horse to deliver books to neighbors in the hills of this coal country.

May Stafford was a woman who was very, very interested in getting books into the hands of people in some of the more remote areas of Johnson County.

So, she came up with the idea of a packhorse library in which the librarians would take the books to farmers living along creeks in Johnson County, who didn't have easy access to come into town.

She wanted folks to have access to books and be able to read, become more knowledgeable, expand their life, expand what they knew, and not just be right here in this area, but that there was a world out there.

NARRATOR: Eleanor Roosevelt's people initiated the Pack Horse Library Program.

The idea was to establish a library in each county, fill it with books, and then hire women to ride off into the mountains to deliver these books.

They made a difference in people's lives when they had an opportunity for something to read, to learn something, maybe it's how to make a quilt, or how to can something, or something about a place that they never had seen and maybe never would.

NARRATOR: The idea of Pack Horse Librarians took hold and women, through need or curiosity, or the desire to help their fellow Kentuckians applied for the program.

There was one problem with this federal plan: the WPA would only provide funds to hire the riders but nothing else.

The WPA provided $28 a month for the Pack Horse Librarians, which, I think, equates to probably around $500 a month now, and they weren't provided a mule or a horse.

So, they either had to rent one, like Pine Mountain Settlement school, for instance, had a mule that they could rent, or they had to have their own already.

And the feed, and the upkeep, and the veterinary care, and all of that came out of that $28 a month salary.

NARRATOR: The communities of Kentucky's Appalachia were faced with a big challenge.

While the Pack Horse Library Program was formed by the FDR administration, Kentucky now had librarians to deliver library books, but there were no libraries or books.

There certainly wasn't a "here's a beautiful library to start you up".

There was nothing like that.

Or "here's a pack of ten mules to get you around".

It wasn't like that.

It was, "we'll pay you $28 a month, good luck".

NARRATOR: While the Pack Horse Program would become known for the women who would risk their lives riding through the mountains, there were men who also shared the vision of what the libraries could do for the people of their communities.

WOMAN: I recall watching as our dad worked, building a library from an old mining camp house.

When finished, Mama lined the shelves they had made with books.

It soon became a busy place and hangout for the neighborhood children.

We all became avid readers, and still are, thanks to the library.

NARRATOR: In some towns, like Prestonsburg, buildings were donated by businessmen who might also offer their services and help direct the library operations.

Citizens across the Commonwealth came to the aid of their fellow Kentuckians.

Kentucky's PTA and library organizations sent out requests nationwide for the donation of reading materials.

Crates of books arrived from around the country to fill the shelves of the newly-formed libraries.

The Pack Horse Librarians often used their own funds to pay for shipping.

For the women who would ride into the mountains, they were faced with a daunting task.

It was a job with many dangers.

As there were no paved roads, they rode horses and mules along mountain paths or used creek beds as highways.

KIM ANGEL: There are a lot of holes, and there are rocks underneath the leaves that you can't see, and just lots of things going on that you might not notice.

So, you really rely and you have to really begin to trust your horse.

I really admire anyone who had enough grit and determination to take on a job like that.

It was a hard job because it wasn't flat ground, and there weren't any paved roads.

If you're familiar with Eastern Kentucky, you know it rains a lot.

And when it rains a lot, the creeks flood.

And if it's cold, they ice over.

You had to know where you were going and watch for floods, and ice, and everything else.

NARRATOR: The children of these Pack Horse Librarians remember the stories from their mothers and fathers, like Tina Slone Cook, who would face the elements.

FORREST COOK: In the winter, given the water that would splash up from going through creeks, or rain, or snow, or you name it, on more than one occasion, she would come home with her feet frozen in the stirrups and my dad would chip the ice off before she would get off.

On other occasions, the mule would slip and fall because of the degree of the hillside, the degree of slope that those mountain paths took.

And you do not want your mule to fall.

Whether you're behind it holding the reins or atop it, you do not want that size of animal to fall because not only does the animal get hurt, anybody nearby gets hurt.

KIM ANGEL: It's a pretty good possibility that if you ride, you're going to come off at some point.

And it depends, of course, how you fall and what happens at that time, and your experience level, but you could really get hurt.

And in these remote locations, of course, they didn't have cell phones back then, and so it was a really dangerous profession for somebody to take on.

NARRATOR: In 2019, the Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson was released, extolling the strength and character of these women.

These women were risking their lives to do what they were doing - to deliver books, to bring hope to the people of Eastern Kentucky.

They got up at the crack of dawn and didn't get home till late.

And sometimes, if a snowstorm or a rainstorm came, they had to sleep at their patrons' houses and then get back up.

If their horses died suddenly, they would have to deliver those books themselves.

Their job was never easy.

They were like the postman indeed -- rain, sleet, and snow.

NARRATOR: These women would face one more obstacle: the people of the mountains themselves, people who distrusted the idea of the government coming into their homes.

But as the Pack Horse Librarians introduced magazines with articles to improve their lives, and books that would visibly change the education of their children, the people of Eastern Kentucky looked forward to the visit by the book woman.

The first Pack Horse Library was in Leslie County in 1935.

It was an immediate success.

Surrounding counties were impressed, and quickly, more libraries were created.

Eventually, thousands of families throughout Eastern Kentucky were served by this program.

May Stafford, who, twenty years earlier, had come up with the idea, would again become a Pack Horse Librarian, setting up a library in the old mail mansion in Paintsville to serve Johnson County.

I think the success of the Pack Horse Librarian Program is in the numbers.

In 1936, they had eight Pack Horse Librarians.

The fact that they ended up serving half -- the eastern half of the state of Kentucky, over 200 schools -- it just grew tremendously.

People loved the books, people loved the program.

I think it was a wild success.

NARRATOR: Joshua Sharp would write of the program in the Whitley Republican newspaper, describing the excitement for this library service as spreading across the landscape like a virus.

MAN: The spirit of this library service soon became contagious.

The carriers caught it from their leader, and they, in turn, spread it among the parents whose homes they visited.

Preachers, teachers, and influential citizens of Whitley County contracted the idea and began spreading the good news.

NARRATOR: But it was the women themselves who took hold of this program and committed themselves to the people of the hills.

WOMAN: Mama got a job on the WPA.

This was a program created by President Roosevelt in an effort to help the country and to help people who were down and out get back on their feet.

Sometimes, it was called a giveaway, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

Mama worked very hard.

She started out each morning with a satchel, filled it with books until it was very heavy, and traveled the countryside, leaving books and picking up books from her previous rounds.

She was gone from home nine hours a day.

She gave an honest day's work.

Their home was eight miles from the county seat.

Eight miles by muleback to report in once a week, each way.

And then a route that might be 18 miles on average, according to the WPA.

So, the hours that she worked were great indeed.

I have no doubt she felt more liberated by the fact that she was doing something that contributed not only to the family but to others.

For a woman in Eastern Kentucky, that maybe her children were starving and her family is starving, $28 a month was a lot of money.

They could do a lot with that money.

And to be able to pioneer this program was exciting for them.

To raise that literacy rate, share their books, share knowledge, and then to find they were so welcome.

Amidst their own sickness, poverty, they were bringing hope to the people of Kentucky.

NARRATOR: Though the WPA was also involved with building roads into the region, the danger never ceased.

An accident could lurk around every corner.

There's a funny quote from a former Pack Horse Librarian who joked that her horse had the two legs on its left side shorter than the two legs on the right side so that it could get on the hillside.

This was not a friendly area in terms of the landscape.

You had predators like copperheads and mountain rattlers, poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, very thick vegetation, really hard to get through, mountain lions, bears.

There's a reason why we like to say sort of the toughest frontiersman settled in Appalachia.

NARRATOR: But through all the dangers, these Kentucky women proved their resilience.

They did what they had to do because their goal was to get the books out there to everyone, to every child.

They wanted every child will have a book in their hand.

And they were so resilient.

If your horse/your mule died, you walked.

You walked those 12-15 miles to get those books to those communities.

And you carried the books -- 50 to 100 pounds of books.

They were not weaklings, they were strong women.

They were determined women.

NARRATOR: While the work brought much-needed money into their families, the Pack Horse women earned the reward of seeing the true benefit of this program: helping the people of Appalachia.

Sometimes, the job was not simply to deliver books.

There were people in the mountains who could not read for themselves, and a friendly face showing up every week at their doorstep was like inviting the world into their home.

KIM MICHELE RICHARDSON: For the men up there, who had little hopes of a future, it meant everything.

For the bedridden, to be able to be visited by one of these Kentucky Pack Horse women, it meant the world.

To the children... everyone was touched.

And they just couldn't get enough of the Pack Horse Librarians' visits.

Literacy is a tricky thing to gauge.

Let's say you've been to school for two or three years, and then you drop out at the age of eight or nine, and you don't really have access to books.

Well, your ability to read is going to decline over the years.

And I think that's what this particular program was dealing with -- folks who perhaps had some education when they were very young but hadn't been reading a lot from that point forward.

And I know that some of the Pack Horse Librarians would actually take the time to stop with folks who might have had difficulty in reading and would sometimes read to them for an hour or two in the afternoon.

And, you know, that's really a beautiful thing because it's reintroducing many of these people, perhaps to a skill that they had lost.

And Appalachians love a good story.

NARRATOR: But perhaps the greatest reward was seeing their neighbors not only enjoying their company but asking for more books as they began to expand their own world.

WOMAN: A woman came in today: "I've hauled corn all day, but I thought I could rest better if I had a good book to read".

She got the book, and late one evening she brought it back for another.

"About halfway up the mountain, I sat down to rest on a rock by the path.

I began to read and got so interested that I didn't notice how late it was until it was so dark I couldn't see how to read.

I had to cross the mountain in the dark, but I was rested and had a good story to think about as I went along".

[♪♪♪] NARRATOR: Janice Kreider remembers her mother, Irene Crisp Stegall, defending the idea that everyone was entitled to books.

JANICE KREIDER: The director of the program was a man, a local man, and he said, "now Irene, you're a nice girl, there's one house I don't want you to go to".

And he told her which one it was.

And, of course, then she was interested in why.

And the issue was that this was working ladies, and making their way to survive was to be prostitutes.

She didn't understand why she shouldn't stop and give them reading materials too.

And so, she did.

And that was very much like my mother.

It was like, it wasn't fair that they wouldn't be able to have reading materials too.

And she said they always looked forward to it.

NARRATOR: As books and magazines changed hands and wore out, the head of librarians watched as the Pack Horse women discovered another way to spread knowledge to their constituents: making scrapbooks.

What they would do is they would patch together different books, different editions of things, glue them together, remake them, so that folks could actually get something from them and read them and they didn't have to go to waste.

Women started making their own books - scrapbooks - and filling it with little poems and recipes, tips on how to clean, how to keep their children well, recipes, sewing patterns, how to dig a well.

NARRATOR: The strength and bravery of these women inspired others around the country to help this program.

Thousands of books and magazines would continue to arrive at the local libraries.

John Lair of Renfro Valley took great pride in what the Pack Horse Program brought to the people of Eastern Kentucky.

He began his Monday at Renfro Valley broadcast from the front of the single-room Redbud schoolhouse that still stands today.

His musicians played from where the teacher had stood.

To encourage donations, John Lair held a drawing for a quilt autographed by his musicians for the listeners who contributed books for the new libraries.

[♪♪♪] One of the favorite stops for these writers was the One Room School House, greeted by the voices and laughter of children waiting on the treasures held in the saddlebags of the book woman.

The children enjoyed seeing the Pack Horse Librarians come because that was their internet.

That was the way they got information -- from the magazines, principally, and the books that they would bring.

NARRATOR: Vivien Reinhardt from Luton would grow up to be the mayor of Pewee Valley, but still remembers the thrill of getting a book every week.

Until the Pack Horse came, the only book I had to read was my history school book.

And then when Pack Horse Library came, it was one of the brightest times of my life.

NARRATOR: She also learned to extend that thrill by trading with others.

My friend, Arthur Lee Turner, and I would exchange the book.

And so, we had two books every two weeks.

WOMAN: I loved that the books were growing their little minds.

They needed books more than anything this place had to offer.

They were starved for the learning, the know-how on leaving this hard land for a better, softer one.

In a lot of cases, the children were teaching their parents how to read with these materials because the children were getting the education that the parents didn't have.

And so, that's another reason that children's books were in such high demand for this particular project because they were often the ones who were reading to their parents.

NARRATOR: Janice Kreider grew up to be a teacher, and one day was reminded of how important her mother had been to the children of her community.

JANICE KREIDER: About the second week of school, after the end of the day, this other teacher came in and she had a Kentucky accent.

And she said, "you're Rene's girl".

And she told me the story.

I said, "well, how did you know my mother?"

And she said, "well, I went to One Room School House in Elliot County, where your mom used to deliver us books by horseback".

And she said, "we so loved your mom and looked forward to her coming in bringing us books".

[♪♪♪] NARRATOR: But the program not only strengthened both children and adults in their community, it strengthened the women themselves for their future.

Rose Farmer not only got to meet Eleanor Roosevelt but would eventually see the world working with the Red Cross.

Another, Lillian Russell Fugate, would serve 40 years as a teacher and become the first woman mayor of Neon, Kentucky.

[♪♪♪] The time of the Pack Horse Librarians has passed.

The program would end in 1943, but their work and teaching the people of Eastern Kentucky, the power of libraries has continued.

NARRATOR: With the WPA, new roads now made their way through the mountains, and bookmobiles could find their way to the people.

But while bookmobiles took their place, the pride for what these women, these Kentucky women, gave to Appalachia, the land they loved, is still heard in the voices of Eastern Kentucky today.

Do I believe that the Pack Horse Librarian project significantly increased literacy rates in the region?

Absolutely.

You can't not have that effect when you're actually working with schools, when you're actually reading to adults, when children are teaching their parents how to read.

Those are real, tangible benefits from this program.

Pack Horse Librarians were heroes because they were helping folks with their life and bringing the world to those ladies that were stuck up in those hills and those hollers.

I think there was pride and I think there was also a feeling that this is real, that the country is really trying to help us in Eastern Kentucky.

So, I think Rose would have been very proud of both her accomplishments and what was happening for the betterment of Eastern Kentucky.

It was exciting because they knew they were on the foreground of something very special.

Amidst of their own sickness, poverty, they were bringing hope to the people of Kentucky.

JANICE KREIDER: You just had to have confidence and grit to do it, and do it again the next day, which she did have.

♪ I go through a trial by fire ♪ ♪ Aiming for your heart's desire ♪ ♪ I go through a trial by fire ♪ ♪ To bring food for your soul ♪ ♪ Book woman ♪ ♪ Book woman ♪ ♪ Book woman ♪ [♪♪♪] ANNOUNCER: This program is funded in part by a grant from the Carolyn Tassie Memorial Fund.