Partner May Stone
Queer Places:
Bodley-Bullock House, 200 Market Street, Lexington, KY 40507
The Lexington Cemetery, 833 W Main St, Lexington, KY 40508, United States
Katherine Rebecca Pettit (February 23, 1868 – September 3, 1936) was a pioneering American educator, progressive reformer, and suffragist from Kentucky
who dedicated over forty years of her life to the settlement school movement in the Appalachian mountains.
Born in Fayette County, Kentucky, to Clara Barbee and Benjamin F. Pettit, she attended the Sayre School in Lexington and became an active member of progressive organizations such as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the Kentucky Federation of Women's Clubs, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. Choosing a life of social reform over traditional marriage, Pettit forged a lifelong professional and personal partnership with May Stone, a fellow reformer from Louisville.
Together with May Stone and other progressive women, Pettit began doing summer social settlement work in eastern Kentucky under the auspices of the Kentucky Federation of Women's Clubs starting in 1899. After working at camps including Camp Cedar Grove and Sassafras Social Settlement, local elder Solomon Everage observed the women—whom locals affectionately and curiously dubbed "quare fotched-on women from the level land"—and invited them to establish a permanent industrial school in the Troublesome Creek region. In 1902, with financial backing from Kentucky WCTU president Frances Beauchamp, Pettit and Stone co-founded the Hindman Settlement School in Knott County, Kentucky, establishing a model for education, healthcare, and homemaking in the region.
Never one to rest after a major achievement, Pettit partnered with Ethel deLong Zande in 1913 to co-found a second major institution, the Pine Mountain Settlement School in Harlan County, Kentucky, modeled after Hull House. At Pine Mountain, Pettit directed outdoor work and agricultural education, helping local farmers maximize their garden and field production, while also championing the preservation of Appalachian culture, folk songs, local crafts, and traditional quilting. Her deep expertise in natural vegetable dyeing was later preserved and published posthumously as The Katherine Pettit Book of Vegetable Dyes. In addition to her educational and cultural preservation work, Pettit was a passionate advocate for the woman suffrage movement, distributing suffrage literature to mountain youth and breaking barriers in 1914 by being elected as a public school trustee in Harlan County despite heavy political antipathy toward women in eastern Kentucky politics. Beyond her Appalachian activism, she was an avid world traveler who visited major global ports to bring back innovative ideas to help mountain communities.
Pettit spent her final years residing in the garden apartment of her sister Minnie Pettit Bullock's home in Lexington's Gratz Park Historic District. She passed away from cancer on September 3, 1936, and was laid to rest in the Lexington Cemetery. Her legacy as a trailblazing educator and reformer continues to be honored through the lasting impacts of the Hindman and Pine Mountain settlement schools, which transformed generations of Appalachian lives.
References:
Support this project
This website is a passion project researched, developed, and funded entirely by me. If you find the content valuable and would like to help support the ongoing research and hosting costs, any contribution is deeply appreciated.
Thank you for keeping this independent resource alive!
My books on Amazon: Elisa Rolle's books