Alice Lloyd on Caney Creek

University of Kentucky UKnowledge Higher Education Education 2-23-1995 A College For Appalachia: Alice Lloyd on Caney Creek P. David Searles National Endowment for the Arts Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Searles, P. David, "A College For Appalachia: Alice Lloyd on Caney Creek" (1995). Higher Education. 9. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_higher_education/9 A COLLEGE FOR APPALACHIA A COLLEGE FOR APPALACHIA Alice Lloyd on Caney Creek P. DAVID SEARLES THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Copyright © 1995 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine College, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Club, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. Editorial and Sales Offices: Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Searles, P. David, 1933- A college for Appalachia : Alice Lloyd on Caney Creek / P. David Searles. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8131-1883-2 (acid-free paper) 1. Lloyd, Alice, d. 1962. 2. Educators—Kentucky—Biography. 3. Alice Lloyd College—History. 4. Appalachian Region—History. I. Title. LA2317.L75S43 1995 370'.092—dc20 [B] 94-33874 Contents Preface vii 1. The Alice Lloyd Story and Appalachian Literature 1 2. The New England Years 19 3. Community Development in Knott County 42 4. Higher Education Comes to Knott County 60 5. Our Purpose Is to Train Leaders 76 6. The Unwritten Pledge Redeemed 94 7. Faith and Friends Sustain Us 108 8. The Post-Lloyd Era 130 9. Conclusions 145 Notes 163 Bibliography 202 Index 211 Illustrations follow page 86 Preface IHIS STUDY OF ALICE LLOYD—a New England woman who went off to do good early in the twentieth century—and of the college she founded in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky grew out of a reading program designed to introduce me to the Appalachian region. The books I read ranged from early twentieth-century romantic novels that used the mountain environment as a backdrop to serious attempts by scholars to examine the Appalachian experience from the viewpoint of their respective academic disciplines. From this exploration of Appalachian literature it became readily apparent that the outsiders who were drawn to Appalachia by a variety of economic, religious, and altruistic motives have often been portrayed in disparaging terms, especially in the last two decades. It seemed to me that this criticism had been overdone with respect to one group of outsiders: the men and women who came to the mountains as teachers, nurses, social workers, and change agents determined to use whatever skills and good will they possessed in the service of the people of the region. The charges laid against them ranged from the rather inconsequential (e.g., they introduced such foreign practices as putting flowers on the tables and pictures on the walls) to the apocalyptic (e.g., they had participated in the destruction of an entire culture). A recurring weakness in these critical assessments, at least to my view, was that some of the most damning indictments came from writers whose perspective failed to take into account the actual people who were involved in this benevolent work and the individual circumstances from which they came,- the actual social, economic, viii A COLLEGE FOR APPALACHIA and cultural conditions in the areas in which they worked; and the larger forces reshaping America in the early years of the twentieth century. These accounts were so narrowly constructed and so region- ally specific that the reader was left with no broader context within which to judge the conclusions being offered. The story of Alice Lloyd and her forty-seven-year commitment to creating a college in Eastern Kentucky appeared to be tailor-made to test the validity of the impressions left by my reading program. Her story had not been the subject of an objective examination, despite widespread knowledge and support of the work she had done, and it contained many of the same historical elements that charac- terized some of the earlier studies. It was clear that the story could add significantly to our understanding of the motivations, methods, and results that distinguished the work of those individuals who had heeded the call to do good in Appalachia as the twentieth century unfolded. As a result, I embarked upon an effort to understand Alice Lloyd the person, her work in Eastern Kentucky, and the impact she had on the people who lived there. Thus began a process of investigation that led to the gathering of evidence from a variety of sources followed by an attempt to draw from it a balanced interpretation of what happened, why it happened, and what changed as a result. Neither the process of gathering nor that of interpreting is ever without pitfalls, and this case was no exception. The documentary evidence that exists is fragmentary, unorganized, distorted, and, in many instances, con- tradictory. Historian Allen Davis said in the preface to his American Heroine: The Life and Legend of fane Addams that the legends surrounding settlement house pioneer Jane Addams were just as likely to obscure "truth" as they were to reveal it. The same holds for the legends that have grown up around the founder of Caney Junior College. (For example, Alice Lloyd came to the mountains not to regain her health, as commonly believed, but purposefully to do good, as this study will show.) Nevertheless, the effort to separate truth from legend is important because only then can the person and the legacy be properly understood and evaluated. This study is organized broadly along topical lines, but not exclusively so. Each chapter examines a particular theme, although it does so within a chronological framework. The narrative has a general flow that takes the reader from earlier periods to later ones, but the primary emphasis is on the subjects under discussion because Preface ix it is these that shed light on the mountain experience, not the sequence of events. The first chapter sets out the principal themes on which the work is based and places it within the body of current Appalachian scholarship. Its ultimate purpose is to give the reader a framework for judging the adequacy of the evidence marshaled in the remainder of the study and the validity of the interpretations drawn from it. The second chapter is an examination of Lloyd's New England years: the years during which she established herself as a successful, innovative, ambitious, and hard-driving journalist and entrepreneur. The third chapter shows how Lloyd's initial attempts at broad- based community development were abandoned as a result of her discouraging experience with local leadership. The fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters deal with the college: its beginnings, its mission, the faculty and staff who made it function, and the student body who benefited from its presence. Chapter 7 concentrates on the success the school had in support- ing itself over the years through an aggressive program of fund-raising. It highlights the way in which fund-raising appeals were based on mountaineer stereotypes as sure to tug at the heartstrings of potential donors as they were to anger the people being portrayed. Chapter 8 takes the Caney Creek saga from 1962, the year of Lloyd's death at the age of eighty-six, to 1982—a twenty-year period during which the school underwent great change. It describes how the school's physical plant went from an anachronism to a modern college campus, how the institution dealt with student demands for a liberated social code, how the conflict between the new and the traditional almost destroyed the college in the mid-1970s, and how Alice Lloyd College emerged as a four-year college in the early 1980s. Chapter 9, the concluding chapter, deals with two major themes. First, it answers the central questions raised in chapter 1. Second, it uses the Alice Lloyd experience as a way of testing the appropriate- ness of the interpretations of the outsiders' role in current Appala- chian scholarship. This chapter shows that there is a need for a less mean-spirited assessment of the people who went to the mountains to do good, of the work they did, and of the methods they employed. In completing this project I was blessed to have the assistance of many dedicated people and their institutions. The men and women at Alice Lloyd College were helpful well beyond any point I had a right to expect. They provided ready access to the college's archives; they provided food and lodging; and they provided warm friendship X A COLLEGE FOR APPALACHIA and encouragement, the latter being especially important on more than one occasion. Research librarian Thomas Graham and Director of Public Relations Jerry Kibler were especially helpful. The librarians at the University of Kentucky, Berea College, Radcliffe College, and Wellesley College, and those at the Boston, Cambridge, and Wakefield public libraries in Massachusetts and the Laconia Public Library in New Hampshire led me by the hand through their fascinating and useful collections. I happily acknowledge that my efforts benefited from the direct assistance of several particular individuals over a period of three years.

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