Moonlight Schools. For the Emancipation of Adult Illiterates.

New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1923 Third printing. Inscribed by the author "For Mrs. Louise Bayum, friend of my nephew, Major Eugene W. McGlone, with the compliments and best wishes of Cora Wilson Stewart. Cloth. Publisher's dust jacket includes atmospheric cover art of adults attending night school. . Octavo. With frontispiece and 25 plates reproduced from photographs. Chipping to spine, front and back cover. Minor foxing to spine. Overall, a clean, tight copy. Very good condition. Scarce in dust jacket. A foundational work in education pioneering, Stewart's memoir chronicles the creation of "moonlight schools" for illiterate adults. Stewart describes her work to fight widespread illiteracy in rural communities, as she spearheaded the opening of moonlight schools first in rural Kentucky, then Tennessee, the Carolinas, Alabama, and Minnesota. Cora Wilson Stewart (1875-1958) was a social reformer and educator during the American Progressive Era. She was born to farmers in Rowan County, Kentucky, and became an advocate for adult education to combat illiteracy in her community. After being the first female elected superintendent of schools in Rowan County in 1911, Stewart opened night classes for adults. She wrote reading primers aimed at her target groups such as rural workers, mothers, and soldiers, which included topics of civic responsibility and Christian morality. During her travels to lecture on the issue of illiteracy, she said that Moonlight Schools took a mountain community in Kentucky "from moonshine and bullets to lemonade and Bibles." Her Moonlight Schools ultimately taught thousands of working-class people to read and write. Inspired by Stewart, other educators opened Moonlight Schools throughout the Midwest and south.