# Pack Horse Library: Kentucky's Horseback Book Women

*History & War · Eleanor Hartwell · 2026-08-13*

## TL;DR

From 1935 to 1943, the Pack Horse Library employed women on horseback to carry books, magazines, and newspapers to remote homes and one-room schools across eastern Kentucky's mountain counties. The program was part of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration, and it brought reading material to families who had no other access to a library. The initiative reached thousands of rural residents before federal funding ended.

## Key facts

- The Pack Horse Library operated from 1935 to 1943 across roughly 30 eastern Kentucky mountain counties.
- The horseback librarians were primarily women, often paid about $28 per month through the Works Progress Administration.
- Each rider maintained a route that could cover 50 to 80 miles per week on foot or by mule, horse, or even a small boat in flooded areas.
- Books were collected through local donations and repurposed magazines, then covered in oilcloth to survive rain and rough travel.
- The program delivered reading material to an estimated 100,000 rural residents, including children in one-room schoolhouses and adults who had never owned a book.

## Riding Into the Mountains: The Pack Horse Library's Unlikely Heroes

Picture a woman on horseback, saddlebags stuffed with books, crossing an icy creek at dawn in the Appalachian winter of 1936. That was the everyday reality of the Pack Horse Library, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project that carried reading material to isolated families in eastern Kentucky during the Great Depression. The program was one of the New Deal's most unusual experiments, born in 1935 to fight the isolation that made the region one of the hardest hit in the country.

Eastern Kentucky's unemployment had climbed to 40% by the early 1930s, and the federal government knew it had to act. The WPA's answer was not a road or a dam, but something stranger: a library on hooves. The Pack Horse Library covered a rugged 10,000 square miles of mountain country, an area where electricity and paved highways had barely arrived. For the people living in those hollows, food was scarce, schools were far away, and books were almost unheard of.

The women who took on this work, known as "book women," were mostly local residents who knew the trails and the families. They started before sunrise, loading their horses and mules with sidebags full of novels, magazines, and picture books. In winter, they crossed freezing rivers with numb feet in the stirrups, their breath fogging in the cold air. They took the job as seriously as any mail carrier, and the communities they served came to depend on their visits.

One supervisor captured the hunger for reading in a note about the children who ran to meet the librarians. "Bring me a book to read," she wrote. "Not a particular book, any book will do, because these children have never read any of them." The mountain people loved Mark Twain, and *Robinson Crusoe* ranked among the most requested titles. For adults who could not read, the book women often taught them, turning every delivery into a lesson as well as a loan.

## Who Were the Book Women of Kentucky?

The "book women" of Kentucky were a corps of female riders employed by the Pack Horse Library, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project that ran from 1935 to 1943. These women strapped saddlebags full of reading material onto mules and horses, then climbed into the rugged hills of eastern Kentucky to reach isolated mountain communities. They were mail carriers of literature, and for many families, they were the only connection to the printed word.

Their job went far beyond dropping off books. The book women collected reading requests from families who had no other way to ask for specific titles, and they often doubled as teachers. Many adults in those hollows had never learned to read, so the librarians would sit down with them, open a picture book, and walk them through the basics on the spot. It was literacy work and library work rolled into one saddlebag.

The "libraries" themselves were humble affairs. Any available building could serve, whether a drafty church hall or the back room of a post office. Riders would load up at these outposts, then head out on trails that barely qualified as paths, crossing creeks in winter with frozen feet still wedged in the stirrups. One local recipient reportedly wrote a note that has become part of the program's lore: "The books you bring us saved our lives." As the story goes, the gratitude was that sincere, though the exact note has never been verified as a documented fact.

A Pack Horse Library supervisor captured the hunger for reading in a single observation. Children would run out to meet the librarians, shouting for any book at all. Not a specific title, just something, anything. Most of those kids had never held a book before in their lives. Many mountain schools had no library of their own, and the nearest public library was a distant, unreachable luxury.

The riders covered a sweeping 10,000 square miles of eastern Kentucky, a region where unemployment during the Great Depression reached as high as 40 percent. The state had already fallen behind on electricity and highways, and the Depression made food, education, and opportunity even scarcer. The book women did not fix those problems, but they brought something the mountains desperately wanted: stories, news, and a window to the wider world.

## What Did the Mountain People Read?

Ask the riders what filled their saddlebags, and you would hear names that still sit on shelves today: Mark Twain's novels and Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe." These were the books that traveled up hollows and over ridges into eastern Kentucky's remote communities during the Great Depression. Kathi Appelt, who co-wrote a middle-grade book about the Pack Horse Library, said in a 2002 radio interview that the mountain people loved Twain, and "Robinson Crusoe" ranked among the most requested titles.

But not everyone in those hills could read. Many adults had never learned, so picture books became some of the most treasured items in the delivery rotation. A family might gather around a single illustrated volume, turning pages together even if only one person could sound out the words. The images carried their own stories, and they needed no literacy to spark wonder.

A 1935 newspaper caption captured the scale of the effort, noting that riders began distributing reading books to 57 communities in Hell Creek. That single line hints at how deeply the service reached into the countryside. A contemporary reporter added his own observation: "The Kentucky mountaineer's intelligence is sharp." The people wanted learning, even when the nearest school or library sat a hard day's ride away.

## The End of the Trail and a New Legacy

By 1943, the Pack Horse Library had run its course. The program that sent women on horseback across 10,000 square miles of rugged eastern Kentucky terrain officially came to a close that year, not because of any single presidential order, but because the Second World War was pulling Americans back into the workforce and Congress was winding down the New Deal's Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects.

Contrary to the popular version of the story, Franklin D. Roosevelt did not personally issue a directive to terminate the WPA. The reality was messier and more human. The war economy had transformed the nation. Factories in Cincinnati and Detroit were hiring, and the same mountain families who had once depended on relief programs were now finding steady paychecks. The need for federally funded librarians, however noble, faded as the emergency that created them receded.

The final years of the program were bittersweet. The book women had become fixtures in communities that had never known a library. They had taught adults to read, delivered requested titles to isolated homesteads, and watched children sprint toward them the moment they appeared on the ridge. When the program ended, those children had grown. Many had brothers, fathers, and uncles shipping off to Europe and the Pacific. The mountains were changing, and so was the world beyond them.

But the story did not end with the last horse ride. According to the original account, motorized bookmobiles were on the road by 1946, continuing the mission with engines instead of stirrups. The transition was reported but not fully verified, yet it fits the pattern of postwar America, where everything from mail delivery to school buses was trading hooves for horsepower.

The legacy stretches far beyond those early years. According to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Kentucky's public libraries operated 75 bookmobiles in 2014, reportedly the largest number of any state in the country. The figures are part of the historical record, though they come from a report that has not been independently corroborated. Still, the pattern holds. A state that once sent librarians up creek beds and over frozen rivers still refuses to let distance come between its people and their books.

The Pack Horse Library was never just about distributing reading material. It was a declaration that knowledge belongs to everyone, even those living in hollows so remote that the mail barely reached them. The horses are gone, the saddlebags have rotted, and the book women have passed into memory. But every time a bookmobile rounds a bend in a Kentucky holler, their spirit is still riding along.


## Frequently asked questions

**What was the Pack Horse Library project?**

The Pack Horse Library was a Works Progress Administration initiative that sent librarians on horseback to deliver reading materials to remote eastern Kentucky communities during the Great Depression. Operating from 1935 to 1943, the program covered roughly 10,000 square miles of rugged Appalachian terrain where families lived far from any public library.

**How did the Pack Horse Library deliver books?**

Women riders loaded saddlebags packed with books onto horses or mules and traveled treacherous mountain paths. They often set out at dawn, crossed freezing rivers with numb feet in their stirrups, and pushed through harsh winter weather. These riders took their work as seriously as mail carriers, treating every delivery as a promise kept.

**Why did the Pack Horse Library start during the Great Depression?**

The program began because eastern Kentucky's Appalachian region faced unemployment rates up to 40 percent during the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal created the Works Progress Administration, and the Pack Horse Library became one of its most unusual projects. The area also lacked electricity and reliable roads, leaving isolated families without any access to reading materials.

**Did the Pack Horse Library teach people to read?**

Yes. The book women did more than drop off reading material. They took down requests, matched books to readers, and frequently taught non-readers how to read on the spot. One supervisor recalled hearing children cry out for any book at all, since many mountain schools had no libraries and students had never held a book before.

**What happened to the Pack Horse Library after it ended?**

The program ended in 1943 as wartime recovery pulled people back into the workforce and WPA projects wound down. Motorized bookmobiles took over the mountain routes by 1946, and Kentucky went on to operate the largest fleet of bookmobiles in the country.

Canonical: https://curio.madeda.com/pack-horse-library-kentucky-s-horseback-book-women/