Dusty Old Thing recently published an article by Rose Heichelbech about The Fierce Female Librarians Who Delivered Books On Horseback During The Great Depression. While everyone’s heard of the Pony Express, this is a rarely-told story. If like me, you’d never heard it, here you are!

The New Deal’s Book Women

In the middle of the Great Depression, not only was America grappling with the tightening of just about every single household budget, but the nation was also poorly connected. At the time most rural areas were without basic services like electricity and running water. As such, these remote areas were often devoid of public institutions like libraries.

Some of the most isolated areas were nestled in the Appalachian area of Kentucky, among other locations. One of the many public programs initiated by FDR’s New Deal was the Works Progress Administration, which funded the Pack Horse Library Initiative. The…