“Book woman, give me a book.”
That was what the packhorse librarians often heard when they rode up to a schoolhouse on their horse or mule with their saddlebags or sometimes gunnysacks full of library books. Many of the mountain children had little access to books and it was exciting to get something new and different to read.
The packhorse library project was part of the WPA programs during the Great Depression in the 1930’s. WPA workers built hundreds of schools, health clinics, roads, park facilities, and community centers, but such building projects were “men’s work” and not jobs a woman would be considered for in the 1930s. The problem was that while it was good to put men to work, by the the mid 1930’s, many women were heading up households for various reasons.
To keep these women off the relief rolls, jobs were created in health services, school lunch programs, sewing projects and libraries. The WPA project enabled some poor districts to have library services for the first time, but they had to come up with unique ways to get the books to the people in areas like the Eastern Kentucky Appalachian Mountains where passable roads up into the hills were lacking. To get books to people there the librarians rode horses and mules. In other states such as Louisiana, librarians delivered books on small flatboats they navigated with poles through the bayous.
Being a librarian was considered proper “women’s work.” However, one packhorse librarian recalled that riding her library route up in the hills wasn’t always that easy, especially on rainy days. She said, “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.” My packhorse librarian in Along a Storied Trail had some of those hard trails through snow and cold and a willing horse named Shadrach.
The pay was $28 a month for the librarians. In the Appalachian counties, the book women had to supply her own horse or mule. Some, as I have Tansy doing in Along a Storied Trail, leased a horse from a neighbor. The book women rode 100 to 120 miles a week along designated routes through all kinds of the weather. If they couldn’t get there on their horses or mules, they went on foot. Most of librarians were local women which made them more acceptable to the mountain people who could be suspicious of strangers coming to their doors. Sometimes, they went to cabins so remote that whoever lived there hadn’t seen a soul since the last book delivery.
They took time to stop and read to people along the way, especially those who couldn’t read and were homebound due to illness. They tried to fill book requests and were careful what they took out to the people. Men liked Popular Mechanics magazines and women liked Woman’s Home Companion and Ladies’ Home Journal. They always had Bibles and old Sunday school books. They didn’t have magazines like Love Story and True Story, or detective magazines even though they were popular with readers in other areas at the time. They wanted to be sure no one, including the local preachers, could say their books weren’t fit to be read.
Book women often did double duty, carrying messages, letters, and news of the world through the mountains. By the end of 1938, there were 274 librarians riding out across 29 counties. The program closed in 1943 as the country geared up for the war effort and jobs were plentiful.
The book women helped nurture local pride. As one recipient said, “Them books you brought us has saved our lives.”
While the book woman reading to the man in the picture looks older than my character, Tansy, I did have Tansy wearing boots and a knit cap like this as she rode through the winter weather in Along a Storied Trail. Only two weeks now until my packhorse library book releases on June 1. I’m excited to have the book out there for readers and I hope you’ll like the story. Reviews, if you can post one online, are always helpful too.
Get an entry in my giveaway here on my blog, by leaving a comment. If you left a comment on my last post, you can get a second entry by commenting again. I’ll pick a winner who will get a copy of Along a Storied Trail or one of my other books if she or he so chooses. Deadline to enter is May 22, 2021 midnight EST.
Do you think you would have liked being a packhorse librarian?
Comments 68
“Along A Storied Trail” turned me on to your writing. I am looking forward to this book!!!
Author
Great, Tracy. I hope you’ll like the story enough to go back and give some of my other stories a try. These Healing Hills and An Appalachian Summer are both set in the Eastern Kentucky Appalachian Mountains too although they are about Frontier Nurse midwives instead of packhorse librarians.
Thank you for opening up a whole new way of life thru your writing. I have always wanted to be a librarian; unfortunately I never pursued that career. I thoroughly enjoy reading talented authors such as yourself that can have readers travel or live in a time or place that is interesting and so captive. I look forward to reading your new book.
Author
Thank you so much for your kind words about my books, Susan. I really appreciate you reading my stories. When I was a kid, I really thought it would be neat to be a librarian, but I’m sure I was romanticizing it a little and imagining nothing but reading. 🙂 I hope you’ll enjoy riding along with Tansy as she delivers books on her mountain trails.
What a great introduction for your book.
Author
Thank you, Diana. I hope you will enjoy the packhorse librarian history when you get a chance to read my book.
My husband was a librarian for 29 years (he retired in 2012) in a tiny, one-room library in a tiny town in the center of Washington State. He still gets stopped in the streets by people who want to let him know they came to his library as a child and how much he meant to them. They now bring their kids to that same library, although it has a different librarian now. Hooray for books, librarians and these women who went to such lengths to get books into the hands of so many people who never would have had that opportunity!
Author
Hooray for books indeed, Teresa. Without the chance to go to the library when I was a kid and then later when I started researching for my first book long before anybody had even heard of the internet, I would have never been able to write my stories.
It’s wonderful that your husband made such a difference in your community by helping children and adults too have access to books. I love librarians and those who keep the books on the shelves for readers to find.
What a wonderful way to serve communities! These ladies brought more than books to the places they served. They brought hope and gave people a little bit of a reprieve from the worry of the world. What a awesome job even though tough at times it must have been very rewarding.
Author
I think you’re right, Leslie. Their visits to some of the isolated cabins were a connection with the rest of the mountains as the book women shared news and more about their community and the country outside the mountains too. It’s hard for us to imagine that kind of isolation now with all the way we have to keep in touch with what’s happening, but it was true for many in the mountains during that time. Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving a comment.
I love the idea of delivering books. I seem to lend a lot of my own books out. But I don’t get along with horses all that well and these women were strong women. This was not just an eight hour day. Would like to think I could have done it.
Author
Fun to have you drop by, Crissie, to share in my packhorse library ideas. I don’t have horseback experience either although I think they’re beautiful animals. The book women were strong and dedicated. It was no wonder that they won over the people on their book routes.
I too am a retired children’s librarian. My most favorite responsibility was reading out loud to the children, to make them laugh or feel sympathetic towards a character in a book. I think I might have liked the challenge of serving people by delivering books, but also knowing that you gave them the gift of joy as well!
Author
It’s been so fun hearing from several librarians in the comments to this post, Bonnie. Good to know you’re one of them. I took my kids to the library programs when they were preschoolers. They loved having the librarian read to them. I think those library trips fostered their love of reading and all three of them still read all the time and some of their kids do too. A couple of them are more into electronic entertainment but their mom insists they do some reading too. So important to a child’s progress in school.
As a librarian, you did gift your readers with joy.
Anxious to read your book. I would have loved the horseback riding (but am not sure about riding in the cold and wet). However, taking books to people would have been great. Spent 3rd thru the 10th grades in Jackson and Beattyville, KY.
Won the prize for reading the most library books 3rd thru 6th grades while my family lived in Jackson. Grew up surrounded by books and still am to this day. There’s a book case in every room (including the bathroom)
Author
Love that you have bookcases everywhere, Karen. Sounds as if you grew up a reader for sure. I considered Jackson and Beattyville for the location of my story, but found out Beattyville, I think, had access to a library before some of the other counties. But I did drive around down there and stopped at a couple of libraries to see which places might work best.
I do hope you’ll enjoy the story when you get a chance to read it. I’d be glad to hear what you think.
I am a retired library employee in OH ; would love to have been a pack horse librarian in Owsley Co KY. as that is where both of my parents were born and raised. Dad grew up on a farm near Booneville , my uncle ran the pool hall there and his mother had a small library in town in the 30’s. Mom lived on a farm in the Greenhall area. She went to a one room school through the eight grade. She and dad both went to High school in Booneville. The roads were so bad in the winter that mom stayed with her girlfriend’s grandma in town to be able to get to school. Mom doesn’t remember the Book Women coming through where she lived, but both of my parents always had books in their homes. ‘”Along A Storied Trail ” takes me back to my KY roots ,the beautiful mountains , and the back woods trails leading to so many memories of days gone by. Thanks Ann for a great read; love this book !!
Author
Wonderful, Nancy. Thank you so much for sharing your family history in Owsley County. I visited several counties while I was trying to decide which county to let my packhorse library live. I visited the Owsley County Library and the place seemed a good fit. They were very helpful even though the librarian wasn’t familiar with the history of packhorse librarians in their county, but they did search through some of their history and found our some information for me. They have a beautiful library building now, but due to the lack of jobs in the area, do struggle to keep things going as they wish. It’s interesting to know that your mother had a small library there in the 1930’s. That would have been good to know. I hope you’ll like the story.
I like the idea of being a “book woman”, but riding a horse in the mountains doesn’t sound like me.
Author
There’s several of us thinking that, Tammy. Maybe these days we can just have one of those mini library boxes some put on a post at the edge of their yards to share books with ones neighbors.
I haven’t been around horses all that much so I probably would not be very good at the job. I admire these women though.
Author
We can just ride along with Tansy, Joan. I’m like you. I’d have had to learn a lot more about horseback riding and mountain trails to get the book woman job done.
I worked at a library in Shelby, Ohio(Marvin Memorial Library). One of my tasks was to deliver books to Nursing Homes. Occassionally, I read to a group of the residents. They were always anxious for a good story and seemed to enjoy the books that we left in their library. We also, had a library mascot(Marvin the Mouse) that went along. I think I would have enjoyed delivering books many years ago, but not on a horse.
Author
Carmella, sounds as if you have already been a book woman when you took those books to the nursing homes and then read to the people. I think we miss out on the fun of reading aloud to one another they way people used to do before we had other means of entertainment. Television changed so much about our lives, I think. And air-conditioning. You don’t see as much front porch storytelling as you used to with neighbors stopping by to sit awhile on the porch and share news. But I took off on a rabbit trail there. We’re talking books. I’m sure you had many special times helping bring books and some entertainment to those older readers and I’m guessing they enjoyed Marvin the Mouse too.
Packhorse librarians must have been committed and passionate women!! I love the idea of delivering books to people in need of books, but I don’t think I could have endured making the deliveries in the cold, the wet, and the mud! I am so looking forward to when your book, “Along A Storied Trail” comes out!
Author
Thank you so much for stopping by to read about the book women, Lauren. I agree that those women didn’t have an easy job. Plus most of them were mothers too. Not my character but when I was researching them, most had children they needed to keep fed. When I think about the weather difficulties of riding those trails in the mountains, the rain and mud might have been the hardest. Then again, when I was reading about the Frontier Nurse midwives before I wrote These Healing Hills, the nurse midwives had many stories about going on on icy trails and through storms to deliver babies. Babies don’t wait for the right weather. I suppose these book women didn’t either as they kept their book delivery schedule.
I love seeing the old photos. I can almost feel the excitement that the children (and adults) must have felt when they saw these ladies coming. I have always loved books and as a little girl remember how much fun it was in elementary school to go to the school library and find new books to take home and read. I worked in our school library in middle school and got first dibs on new releases as we stocked the shelves. I am not sure I would have made a good packhorse librarian with the dangers they faced, but think I would have liked bringing the joy of books to the mountain people. Can’t wait to read your book! 🙂
Author
I’m excited for you to read my book too, Hope. It’s always fun and a little nerve wracking to wait for those first readers to let you know what they think about the story. I’ve been fortunate to have gotten some nice reviews on Along a Storied Trail already. So, that lets me breath a little easier. I like the old pictures too and I agree that you can see how eager the children at that school were to have the book woman show up.
First dibs on the books you liked was a good extra benefit of helping in the library. Love that.