SETTLEMENT SCHOOLS

Settlement schools are social reform institutions established in rural Appalachia in the early 20th century with the purpose of educating mountain children and improving their isolated rural communities.  Settlement schools have played an important role in preserving and promoting the cultural heritage of southern and central Appalachia. Scholar David Whisnant has argued that settlement schools created a version of "traditional" Appalachian culture that appealed to outsiders but had little basis in the values of Appalachian people themselves.                                                                            [Wikipedia: Settlement Schools]


"Reformers working to alleviate backwardness and poverty in Appalachia ... saw traditional crafts as a means of affirming and preserving mountain ways, turning them into commodities for sale. During the 1930s, Allen H. Eaton argued that this remedial work could compensate for cultural losses created by modernization. American urbanites, detached from their cultural roots, could adopt Appalachian crafts as touchstones of American identity—and provide Appalachians with a means of making a living. By the same token, evicting Appalachians from what would become the Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks was justified as a way to improve the lives of mountain folk. Reformers reasoned that those displaced by the parks could make their living outside the parks by engaging in basketmaking and other crafts."

— Mary Hufford, "Folklore in Appalachia," in Univ. of Pennsylvania "Folklore and Folklife."  


Kentucky Educational Television (KET) "Settlement Schools of Appalachia" (video and historic overview, 1995)

History: Katherine Pettit  / May Stone

Established in 1902, Hindman Settlement School was the first rural social settlement school established in America and is currently the most successful. The school soon became a model center for education, healthcare, and social services.