The picture that you see above was where my grandfather went to what passed for college around the turn of the 20th century – the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was called the Kentucky Normal College.
Higher education in Appalachia has always been problematic because of geographic isolation of the people and the Appalachian cultural values. To this day, there are few good roads in and out of the heavily mountainous region of the U.S. Until fairly recently, there were few institutions of higher learning that existed in the region.
Cultural values also played a role in the lack of higher education in Appalachia. Jobs that were available were mostly blue collar. Coal miners and farmers are two of the main examples. It was not thought that men working at those professions needed higher learning.
Appalachian women were certainly not encouraged to seek higher learning in the past since their role was to run the family home and raise the children. Some of these stereotypes still exist today.
The maternal side of my family, who lived deep in Eastern Kentucky, did not subscribe to these beliefs. My maternal grandfather saw it as a great point of pride that all of his eight children left the area to receive college degrees and some higher levels of graduate education.
He was a farmer and an employee of an oil company. He had a large farm, but simultaneously he worked for an oil company in Kentucky helping to map the mineral deposits and who owned them in his part of the state. Kentucky, particularly the Appalachian portion of Kentucky, has vast deposits of minerals including coal, oil, and natural gas. He believed in higher education and wanted his eight children, including the six girl children to do well in life.
After my grandfather graduated from what was high school in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, he was fortunate enough to go on to the only real college accessible to him. That college was Kentucky Normal College in Louisa, KY. Another student at that college, at the same time, was Fred Vinson, who later became Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. They were close friends.
As time passed, some of the children of Appalachia were able to attend colleges and universities just outside their home areas. In Kentucky, several colleges were on the fringes of Appalachia and had a large percentage of Appalachian students enrolled.
Many of the colleges were originally “normal” schools. Normal schools are colleges that primarily train teachers. The students received a bachelor’s degree in teacher education. Later, in the 20th century, these normal schools expanded to full-fledged colleges and universities. They still have a sizable percentage of Appalachian students enrolled.
Not everyone in Appalachia was as progressive as my grandfather. That’s still the case in some areas. The girls in many families were not encouraged to go to any college. Even the boys were encouraged to stay and work on the family farm or in the coal mines. Many were drafted to serve in World Wars I and II. Others enlisted.
There are now a few scattered colleges and universities in the Appalachian regions. A Kentucky example is the University of Pikeville in Pikeville, KY which is deep in the coal-producing area of the Appalachian area in the state.
Higher education still continues to be a problem in Appalachia. Many potential students stay home and work close to home, some all their lives. Some have migrated outside the area to find work, primarily in Ohio and Michigan. It is often even difficult to sell the benefits of high school education to the people of Appalachia. They see more value in their children staying close to home. One of the primary cultural characteristics of Appalachia is the clannish nature of the people.
Distance learning and online education have helped the problem of lack of access to higher education in Appalachia although that is a reasonably new solution.
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