About Katherine Pettit:
Dates: February 23, 1868 - September 3, 1936Occupation: settlement worker - Kentucky mountains
Katherine Pettit Biography
Through her work with the Kentucky State Federation of Women's Clubs, this Lexington native became inspired to make a difference in the hard lives of women in the Kentucky mountains of Knott and Harlan County.
Together with Wellesley College graduate May Stone of Louisville, Pettit began with summer schools in Hindman, and in 1901-1902, inspired by stories of Hull House, Jane Addams and Ellen Starr in Chicago, they set out to raise enough money to establish a permanent settlement in the mountains.
Pettit had been involved with the Women's Christian Temperance Union before going into settlement work; her WCTU contacts helped with fundraising and sponsored the new Hindman Settlement School.
Focusing on developing crafts and manual skills, to provide a basis for livelihood as well as pride of heritage, the school also served as a springboard for projects to treat trachoma, a common disease in the community which often led to blindness.
In 1913, Pettit and a woman who had worked at the Hindman school for two years, Ethel de Long, and began a new project on Pine Mountain in Harlan County. From working to clear land to planting fruit trees and constructing buildings, the two worked with a local mountaineer who had contributed the 250 acre site for the new school, the Pine Mountain Settlement School.
Here, they also worked to enrich educational opportunities for children, to help educate mothers on health and cooking and home care, to raise interest in local crafts and folk music.
When the Depression hit the Kentucky mountains, it was especially severe in communities where many families had sold their land and the men had gone to work in the coal mines. Now, with little paid employment, the Settlement Schools helped families return to working the land and produce and distriute local handicrafts to gift shops.
Katherine Pettit died in 1936 of cancer, and was buried in Lexington. The two schools continued in their work in the mountains of Kentucky.
About Katherine Pettit
- Categories: settlement worker
- Organizational Affiliations: Hindman Settlement School, Pine Mountain Settlement School, Women's Christian Temperance Union, Women's Clubs
- Places: Hazard, Hindman, Knott County, Lexington, Cumberland Mountains, Harlan County, Kentucky, United States
- Period: 20th century
- Religious Associations: Presbyterian
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Text © 1999-2008 Jone Johnson Lewis.
