National Domestic Violence Awareness Project

The Horseback Librarians of the Great Depression

historical-nonfiction:

As you know, the Great Depression was a time of terrible unemployment across the United States and across the world. American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt started a wide variety of programs to attempt to alleviate the economic depression. One program created the “book women.”

Many rural communities at the time had little access to books. This of course meant they received a poorer education. With limited educations, economic opportunities were also limited. So the Works Progress Administration created the Pack Horse Library Initiative to bring the books to them. In the most remote areas, notably Kentucky, this meant librarians on horseback. Saddlebags would be filled with books, to be delivered to distribution stations, schools, and even front porches.

The horseback librarians were mostly made up of women whose salaries were paid by the Works Progress Administration. They were generally locals, so that people would trust them, and use the program. The Pack Horse Library Initiative stopped in 1943, because it was no longer needed: World War II basically ended rural unemployment.

(Source: themindcircle.com)