PAR@ ` ITEXT ` ;Pettit, Katherine1868╨1936settlement workerBorn on February 23, 1868, near Lexington, Kentucky, Katherine Rhoda Pettit was educated privately in Lexington and Louisville. In the 1890s, while working with the Woman╒s Christian Temperance Union and the State Federation of Women╒s Clubs, she first discovered the isolation, poverty, and hopelessness of the lives of Kentucky mountain people. From informally distributing flower seeds and decorative pictures to mountain women, her involvement developed into a full commitment to improve their lives. In the summer of 1899, under the aegis of the State Federation of Women╒s Clubs, she and a coworker established a camp on the outskirts of remote Hazard, Perry County, Kentucky, and for several weeks offered housewives instructions in healthful food preparation, gardening, and housekeeping and entertained children with songs, games, and Bible readings. They were invited to hold a similar camp, called an ╥Industrial,╙ at Hindman, Knott County, in the summer of 1900, and in 1901 they set up near Sassafras, also in Knott. In 1901 they began raising funds for a permanent institution. A fundraising tour of eastern cities, along with contributions from organizations and local people, enabled them to open the Hindman School in August 1902. Academic subjects were taught as well as crafts and domestic and industrial skills. Through the efforts of another co-worker, treatment was made available for the endemic trachoma that left many mountain people blind. In 1913 Katherine Pettit left Hindman to establish the Pine Mountain Settlement School near Dillon, Harlan County, a task that she carried through from the clearing of a parcel of donated timberland to the erection of buildings from the lumber. While organizing classes and extension work and clinics for trachoma, hookworm, and dental care, she also encouraged the practice of traditional arts and crafts. In 1907 she published some mountain ballads from Harlan County in Journal of American Folk-Lore, one of the very few occasions she ventured into public print. She resigned as co-director of Pine Mountain Settlement School in 1930 and for the next five years traveled alone through Harlan County offering instruction and advice in farming and acting as agent for craftsmen. She died in Lexington, Kentucky, on September 3, 1936. «styl ` ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ / !I z 5¬ { !I ╧ !I ∞ !I link `
