Stamped ‘W.P.A/ Pack Horse Library/ Green County/ Greensburg, KY’, revealing that this volume was part of Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration Project to send books to remote parts of the Appalachian Mountains between 1935 and 1943. The librarians were women who travelled on horseback with packs that could hold up to 100 books. The Packhorse Library project has been the subject of many historical treatments, notably Jojo Moyes 2019 novel The Giver of Stars.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Green linen binding, attractively stamped in blue; library number ‘942’ to spine. Library treatment to first flyleaf with ‘Room 116’ added in pencil; remnants of a label opposite. Further ‘Pack Horse Library...’ stamp to title page with a number in ink at the tail of the page. Further stamp at pages 51 and on the final pastedown with a library pocket (dated Oct 1947) and a borrowing sheet opposite. Text darkened and occasional staining - signs of heavy use while a library book include dog-earring and a couple of pencilled annotations.
NARRATIVE This book comes from Green County’s Jane Todd Crawford Memorial Library, then located in the Green County Courthouse which took 500 Packhorse Library Books in 1938, no doubt continuing to absorb further Pack Horse books into its collection after the scheme formally closed in 1943.
Every Packhorse Library’s story is different with each one set up on the initiative of a local librarian - Green County was not mountainous but instead remote and accessible by a limited road network. The English folksiness of this volume’s stories makes it a particularly attractive volume to find incorporated into this most remarkable of library schemes which brought texts to people isolated by geography and poverty.
