Pack It In

legends are made. But while some might spend their lives earning their legendary status, others find loopholes workarounds to cement their place in history. People. Sarah Emma Edmunds was born Sarah Edmond in New Brunswick, Canada, in the winter of eighteen forty one. She lived on a farm with her parents, multiple sisters, and one brother. Apparently, her father had wanted another boy to help with the farm, and so Sarah often bore the brunt of his abuse simply for being

born a girl. She passed the time by reading stories of fantasy and adventure, like those of Fanny Campbell, the female pirate captain. Fanny was a fictional character who had set sail during the American Revolution to save her fiancee and wound up becoming the captain of a pirate ship.

These stories swirled around in Sarah's head as an escape from her daily life, but they also got her thinking there must be something better out there away from her father, and so when she was fifteen years old, she left home with her mother's help, partly to get as far from her father as possible and also because she was set to be married soon. She then changed her last name to Edmunds and never looked back. Her dad eventually trapped her down and she had to flee once more

to sky. Ing herself as a boy named Franklin Thompson, she made her way straightside to Connecticut, where her alter ego helped her land a job as a door to door Bible salesman. But she never forgot about Fanny Campbell, who defied the odds and took on men in male dominated fields. Sarah already dressed like a man to make a life for herself on her own, so when the Civil War broke out in eighteen sixty one, Sarah saw her chance to be more than what had been planned

for her. She had been traveling through Michigan selling bibles. When she enlisted with the Union Army there as Franklin Flint Thompson, she was eager to support her adopted country against the South. Sarah, as Franklin, took on a number of duties during the war as part of the Second Michigan Infantry. She helped wounded soldiers, worked as a mail carrier, and even fought at the siege of Yorktown in Virginia. Her loyalty and grace under pressure soon earned her a

way to win the war from the inside. She was made a spy for the Union. According to Sarah's memoirs, she donned numerous disguises and identities to slip behind enemy lines undetected. In one scenario, she dyed her skin black using silver nitrate and wore a wig so that she looked like a black man. On another occasion, while disguised as a black laundress, she stole several papers that had fallen out of an officer's jacket and smuggled them to

her superiors. She also pretended to be an Irish peddler named bridget O'Shea who sold various soaps and other goods to Confederate soldiers, hoping to learn more about their plans. Unfortunately, her life as a spy was cut unceremoniously short. After sustaining a fall from her mule while delivering mail, followed by a bout of malaria, Sarah was told to visit a Union hospital. There was just one problem with that.

Any doctor who examined her would realize she wasn't a man named Frank Thompson, but she was in fact a woman. So instead she checked herself into a private facility and recuperated. But during that time, Frank Thompson was labor a deserter. Posters were put up, and Sarah realized that her other identity was now a wanted man. Rather than go back and face military action for desertion from her post, she traveled to Washington, d C. Where she enlisted as a

female nurse under the name Sarah Edmonds. She published an account of her time with a second Michigan infantry, as well as her brief stint as a spy in a memoir titled The Female Spy of the Union Army. But barely twenty years after its publication, people started to question the book's veracity. A reporter once asked her if her book could be considered authentic, to which Sarah replied not strictly so. In fact, she admitted that much of what

she had written was fiction. Ever since then, historians have picked apart her story, suggesting that even though she served in the military, she probably was never a spy. There were no records of Frank Thompson mentioned in any surviving rosters or memos, and according to the men she served with, her real identity was well known to them by the end of the war. Then they said that she was a great soldier. So was she really a spy? The only people who know for sure are long gone by now.

But Sarah Edmunds did contribute quite a lot to the Union effort during the war. She might not have been a legend, but she certainly was a hero, just one who might have embellished a bit on her resume. May could hear the children long before she could see them. As her mule climbed the last hill on the Appalachian Mountain trail. Shrieks and laughter could be heard from the little one room schoolhouse just beyond the trees. As she rounded the corner, the children rushed to greet May and

her mule, shouting to the others to hurry up. If they didn't come soon, they would miss the book woman. The nineteen twenty nine stock market crash plunged the whole of America into a deep depression, with widespread poverty becoming a fact of daily life. One of the hardest hit areas was the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky. To fight back against the depression and provide work for Americans, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced a series of federal work programs

in nineteen thirty three, called the New Deal. And already lacking the modern highways, electricity, and telephones of the rest of the nation, Eastern Kentucky became a prime target for Roosevelt's ambitious new project. FDR's Works Progress Administration, or WPA, soon descended on Eastern Kentucky, putting men to work building roads and bridges. But the folks of Appalachia weren't just

hungry for infrastructure. They craved knowledge. You see, nearly a third of Eastern Kentuckians could not read at this time, and with many of them out of work, they saw education as a way out of poverty. Their only problem living in rural Appalachia, access to books wasn't exactly easy, it sounded like the perfect job for the book women.

Back in nineteen thirteen, a woman named May Stafford had tried to start a program bringing books to far off hills and haulers on horseback, but had to stop after she ran out of funding. Now in nineteen thirty five, with the backing of FDR's new deal, she was back in the saddle. The pack horse library program was ready to ride again. The idea was simple. Each county in

eastern Kentucky would establish a library with donated books. Twice a month, an army of women riding mules and horses would fill their saddle bags with texts and take them out to the mountains, circulating books and magazines to the furthest rural communities. This was easier said than done. Of course, the government would pay for the writers, but nothing else. This meant communities had to find way to buy or

rent mules, horses, and books. With no roads in many parts of the mountains, pack horse librarians were forced to ride through mountain trails and creek beds. They had to travel nearly one hundred minth miles a week through rain and snow, sometimes arriving home with their feet frozen to the stirrups. When one woman's mule died mid ride, she had to hike the rest of her routes herself. Not to mention, these writers faced constant threats from copperhead snakes, bears,

mountain lions, and suspicious neighbors. Despite the early challenges, the Packhorse Library Program was an instant hit. People loved the books, whether they were practical guides to quilting or canning, beautiful books of poetry, or fanciful adventure novels set in far off lands. By nineteen thirty seven, the program served over fifty thousand families and nearly two hundred public schools. The most popular books in circulation were novels by Mark Twain

and Daniel Dafoe, with beautifully drawn illustrations. It wasn't uncommon for families to read them together, with the children helping their parents learn to read. By the early nineteen forties, as the war breaking out in Europe led to an industrial boom in America, Franklin Rose brought many new deal projects to an end. The Packhorse Library Program officially ended

in nineteen forty three. After serving most of eastern Kentucky for the better part of a decade, While the book women no longer rode through the mountain trails, books found a new way to travel around Kentucky. During the decade the WPA was modernizing the state. Many new roads had been built through the mountains, which gave some of the out of work bookwomen an idea. In nineteen forty six, Kentucky's first motorized bookmobile began driving through the mountains, bringing

books to the people. Nearly seventy years later, their legacy still has a lasting impact. Today, Kentucky's Libraries operates seventy five bookmobiles across the state. It truly is a miracle, an evidence of the enduring power of books. Over one hundred years after its story first began, the pack Horse Library is still delivering Hope Hope. If you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities, subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by

visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.