Katherine Pettit papers
Scope and Contents
These are business and personal correspondence, narrative program reports, and diary transcriptions of Katherine Pettit, cofounder with May Stone, of the Hindman Settlement School in Knott County, Kentucky. This collection contains both paper records and sound recordings.
Dates
- created: 1899 - 1937
Creator
- Pettit, Katherine. (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Records can be accessed through the Reading Room, Berea College Special Collections and Archives, Hutchins Library, Berea College.
Conditions Governing Use
No restrictions other than federal copyright regulations. Please cite materials.
Biographical / Historical
Katherine Pettit was born in 1868 near Lexington, Kentucky, the child of Benjamin Pettit a prosperous farmer. She went to schools in Lexington and Louisville and developed an interest in the social and educational problems of eastern Kentucky. Her work in summer educational programs (1899-1901), conducted in Knott and Perry counties by the Kentucky Federation of Women’s Clubs, led to her developing a strong desire to make a permanent contribution to the area.
With financing from the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), she and May Stone founded the WCTU Settlement School at Hindman in 1902. Its purpose was to “found, establish, carry on and maintain a school or schools for industrial, intellectual and moral training; to educate the youth of both sexes in habits of sobriety in the mountainous, destitute or needy portions of the State of Kentucky.” The school remained under the sponsorship of the Kentucky WCTU until 1915, when it was formally incorporated as a private, non-profit, non-sectarian, and non-denominational corporation and became known simply as the Hindman Settlement School.
In 1913 Pettit left Hindman for Harlan County where, with Ethel de Long, she established the Pine Mountain Settlement School and served as co-director until retirement in 1930. For the next five years she employed herself in what she termed “free-lance work,” travelling throughout Harlan County urging men to leave welfare and return to farming. She died in Lexington in 1936 at the age of sixty-eight.
Extent
0.80 Linear Feet
2 ms_boxes
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Papers and records of Katherine Pettit.
Arrangement Note
The collection is arranged in five series:
Series 1: Correspondence (1899-1935)
Series 2: Diary Excerpts
Series 3: Biography-Obituary
Series 4: Miscellaneous
Series 5: Summer Program Reports
Other Descriptive Information
BCA 0012 SAA 011
Subject
- Stone, May (Person)
- Hindman Settlement School. (Organization)
- Zande, Ethel de Long (Person)
- Title
- Katherine Pettit papers
- Subtitle
- A Finding Aid
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Legacy
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- eng
Revision Statements
- 2015-02: The finding aid was updated in February 2015.
Repository Details
Part of the Berea College Special Collections and Archives Repository
Hutchins Library
100 Campus Drive
Berea Kentucky 40404 US
859.985.3262
special_collections@berea.edu