By the light of the silvery moon

One of the Moonlight Schools in rural Rowan County. Original caption reads: “‘Gladys Thompson’s Moonlight School’”; adults and a few children sitting or standing in a room with a potbellied stove, pictures of horses and Abraham Lincoln are hanging on the wall”.

Photo courtesy of Morehead State University.

“They came trooping over the hills and out of the hollows, some to add to the meager education received in the inadequate schools of their childhood, some to receive their first lessons in reading and writing. Among them were illiterate farmers and their illiterate wives, sons, and daughters, but also illiterate merchants and storekeepers, illiterate ministers and illiterate lumbermen. Mothers, bent with age, came that they might learn to read letters from absent sons and daughters, and that they might learn for the first time to write them,” Cora Wilson Stewart.

The Moonlight Sch-ools began in Rowan County, when Cora Wilson Stewart became convinced that education could eliminate the poverty that plagued the region, so she began a crusade against illiteracy in Kentucky in 1911.

With at least the basics of an education, Cora knew adults would have an easier time finding jobs that would help lift them out of poverty.

During those night time classes, adults learned to write their names first then moved on to more practical lessons.

Cora believed adults needed different material to learn to read than children, so she developed The Rowan County Messenger, a newspaper with short sentences and word repetition.

In 1912 the enrollment of those Moonlight schools reached nearly 1,600 and the movement had spread to 8 or 10 other counties.

The first moonlight school in Bath County was organized in Sept. 1914 Blevins Valley.

The following story is an article from the Oct. 30, 1915 edition of the Lexington Herald Leader.

Though organized scarcely two years ago, some of the best work produced in the moonlight schools in the state is being produced in Bath County.

R.W. Kincaid, county superintendent of schools, is very much interested in the work of helping the illiterates and to his efforts towards loosening the county from the bonds of illiteracy may be attributed to the secret of the good work being done here.

With a strongly united teaching force, firmly standing for education both day and night, cheerfully giving their services to the work of the moonlight school, the Bath County schools are lifting the people from the bonds of illiteracy and making new worlds for them and at the same time are brought into close cooperation with the teachers, an end toward which educators have been working for many years.

An increase in the number of schools from 16 to 49 and an increase in the enrollment from 400 pupils to 1,600 in a year’s time, shows how the work of the moonlight schools in this county has progressed in the last year.

In the year 1914, sixteen schools, with a total enrollment of 400 pupils, 250 of which were illiterates ranging from 25 to 80 years of age, were in the county and one of them at Blevins Valley, won the $25 prize offered by congressman Fields for the best moonlight school in the ninth district.

For the present year there are 45 moonlight schools in the county with an enrollment of 1,600 pupils, of which about 1,000 are illiterates, showing to what extent the work is now being carried on.

All the schools are doing splendid work and are making excellent reports, and a view of the splendid work that is being done may be had by a visit to Peasticks, which is being taught by Mrs. Callie Moore and Miss Carrie Nixon and where 150 pupils, all of whom are doing active work, are enrolled.

Two preachers and one doctor are numbered among the pupils.

The Peasticks school and the Ore Mines school, which are almost within hollering distance of each other and about four miles from east of Owingsville, are probably the largest schools of their kind in Eastern Kentucky.

The Ore Mines school having an enrollment of 135 pupils some of whom are 80 years old.

Among them are some well informed and successful business men who are attending to encourage others who are less fortunate to go.

The Ore Mines school is doing some very successful work under the charge of Mrs. Lillie M. Barnes and Miss Nora Barnes.

A domestic science department, instituted and maintained by Mrs. Lille Barnes at her own expense, is being successfully conducted and many good things are being cooked in the afternoon.

The recipes being given to the people. Shirts, aprons, waists and dresses are made by the women, who take much interest in the work.

Although the schoolroom was already crowded, the energetic teachers felt that they could not leave out agriculture, so they asked the men to bring hammers, saws and nails and they made a corn tester in the school and are now testing some fine ears of corn for seed.

With the slogan, “No illiteracy in 1920”, the teachers of this school have the honor of being pioneers in the domestic science work in moonlight schools.

Yvonne Baldwin, author of Cora Wilson Stewart and Kentucky’s Moonlight Schools: Fighting for Literacy in America, said, “The legacy of the Moonlight School highlights the importance of community involvement. Whether somebody is trained or educated, whatever their personal skills may be, anybody can make a difference in bettering the community and a message that I believe still endures today.”