FARM Community Fair Day 1929

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 11: FARM
Series 15: ON-GOING & PAST PROGRAMS AT PMSS
Series 16: EVENTS
By Topic: CELEBRATION
FARM 1929 Community Fair Day

“Mrs. Crit Lewis spinning on Fair Day, 1929.” [kingman_085a.jpg]

FARM 1929 COMMUNITY Fair Day
September 28, 1929

TAGS: 1929 Community Fair Day, agricultural specialists, speeches, homemaking practices, Katherine Pettit, state agencies, J.M. Feltner, Quicksand Agricultural Station, University of Kentucky, William S. Webb, Myrtle Weldon, home demonstration agents, Marian Kingman, ice cream, logging train, contests, tug of war, basketball, folk dancing, milking, bed-making, demonstrations, Miss Ida Hagman, home improvement specialists, Experimental Station, judges

INTRODUCTION: 1929 Community Fair Day

The 1929 Community Fair Day was very similar to the earliest celebrations in that it was dominated by visits from agricultural specialists and talks and speeches about agricultural and homemaking practices.

Images of the letters from Katherine Pettit to various state agencies and to leaders in Kentucky in the field of agriculture are found in the GALLERY below. J.M. Feltner, of the Quicksand Agricultural Station of the University of Kentucky, William S. Webb, Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Physics, University of Kentucky, Myrtle Weldon, State Leader of Home Demonstration Agents, University of Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station, are just a few of the individual contacted to attend the event at Pine Mountain. The notes back and forth regarding getting to the School tell much about the transportation of the day.

The November 1929 issue of “Notes from the Pine Mountain Settlement School” (page 3) reports on that year’s Fair Day:

Our Fair Day came late in September, and Miss [Marian] Kingman, remembering last year, ordered seventy-five gallons of ice cream. Everybody knowing that the logging train would not carry this freight again till next July Fourth decided to do their worst, or best!

It was a wonderful day: speeches, contests, tug of war, a basketball game, folk-dancing, milking and bed-making demonstrations, handcraft, poster exhibits, not forgetting prizes at the end. There were enough pretty babies for us to talk about a baby prize some time in the future. One black mule brought a young mother with a tiny baby in a blue shawl in her arms, and little sister sitting up so straight behind her we felt she should have a prize for horseback riding!

In a letter dated October 17, 1929, Katherine Pettit, then-Director of PMSS, describes the 1929 Fair to Mrs. Lilliath Robbins Bates, at the University of Nanking, China. (Lilliath Robbins Bates was a teacher and housemother at PMSS from 1917 to 1920.)

I wish you could have been here for Fair Day for I know you would have been interested in the contrast between the people who came to it, – those from Lynch and the far side of the mountain and some few from around here – in cheap silk, high-heeled shoes, and the like: and our real mountain neighbors from the hollows and far up the creeks, in long dresses that never made any attempt to be in style. The exhibits of vegetables, canned goods, and the like were excellent, but the most unusual feature of the day was the sheep, cow, chicken, and hog calling contest, when ten or more of the neighbors and children got up on the platform and tried to outdo each other in the loudness and uniqueness of their calls. No one had a better time and more fun out of the contest than the performers, one of whom, after shouting, ‘Sheep, sheep, cudday, cudday, cudday,’ muttered in a state whisper, ‘Baaa.’

GALLERY: 1929 Community Fair Day

: “Mrs. Crit Lewis spinning on Fair Day, 1929.” [kingman_085b.jpg]

: “Mrs. Crit Lewis spinning on Fair Day, 1929.” [kingman_085a.jpg]

: “Fair Day, September 1929. Marian [Kingman], Miss Pettit [Katherine Pettit], Harriet [Crutchfield], Miss [Ruth] Gaines. [?] Morrison, Brit Wilder. [kingman_084a.jpg]

CONTENTS: 1929 Community Fair Day Correspondence

[Note: Letters from PMSS staff in the PMSS Collections are carbon copies, typewritten, unsigned, and meant for the Office files. The original signed copies were sent to the correspondents. Letters from others are typewritten originals unless specified otherwise. The following list of contents is in chronological order and not necessarily in the order of the image numbers.]

[002] May 14, 1929. Letter from Myrtle Weldon, State Leader of Home Demonstration Agents, University of Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station, to Katherine Pettit. Accepts invitation to speak at the Pine Mountain Fair. Weldon asks for directions to School.

[003] May 17, 1929. Letter from Katherine Pettit to Myrtle Weldon, acknowledging her letter regarding participating in the Fair Day. Pettit advises Weldon that Roxy Perkins, Home Demonstration agent in Harlan County, will get her over the mountain.

[004] July 10, 1929. Letter from Katherine Pettit to Mr. J.M. Feltner, London, KY. Pettit provides travel information for Feltner, a speaker at Fair Day, if he is able to make the trip.

[005] August 12, 1929. Letter from Katherine Pettit to William Webb, Professor, University of Kentucky, [College of Agriculture, ?] Lexington, KY. Pettit asks Webb to speak at the Community Fair to be held on September 29th. She invites his wife Aileen [sic] along.

[005] August 15, 1929. Letter from William S. Webb, Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Physics, University of Kentucky, to Katherine Pettit. Webb replies to Pettit that he will be able to speak at Fair Day but fears events may change on his end. He advises Pettit that his wife Aleen will accompany him to the School if by car but will not come if he comes by train.

[007] August 21, 1929. Letter from Katherine Pettit to William S. Webb, University of Kentucky Professor. Pettit acknowledges his letter accepting the Pine Mountain invitation to speak at the Community Fair. She provides information on his travel and accommodations.

[008] August 27, 1929. Letter from Katherine Pettit to Mr. J.M. Feltner. of the Quicksand Agricultural Station of the University of Kentucky. Pettit advises Feltner of the best method of travel to the School and suggests that he pair with Miss Weldon to come to the School. She advises that if he comes by train over the mountain, that the open cars…”are much more attractive that the closed box car.” Pettit wants to know if the two of them can arrive by Friday night.

[009] August 27, 1929. Letter from Myrtle Weldon to Katherine Pettit. Weldon begs out of the complicated arrangements to get to the School:
“I am scheduled to judge your fair on Saturday, September 28. Since that time I have been scheduled to be in Quicksand for our Sub-experimental Station fair Sept. 25 and 26. I find that in order to get to Pine Mountain I will have to come back to Lexington and start all over again. Miss Hagman, our home improvement specialist, is in Berea, Madison County, on Sept. 26 and has the 27th open. Since she is already partly on her way, I am wondering if it would be all right with you for me to send Miss Hagman to take my place at your fair the 28th. She can take a bus from Berea on Friday arriving in time to take the Friday evening train to Putney, arriving in Pine Mountain Saturday morning. Mis Hagman is an excellent judge, a good speaker, and a very practical person. I am sure you will be very pleased to know her and to have her help. This change will certainly help me and I can state very positively that it will in no way handicap your program. Please let me hear from you regarding this. …I very much regret missing your fair, for I enjoyed my previous visit immensely and hope to be able to repeat it.

[010] August 27, 1929, Letter from Katherine Pettit to Myrtle Weldon, Extension Department, University of Kentucky. Pettit had not yet received the letter from Weldon declining to come to the Fair and she proceeds to advise her regarding transportation to the School.

[011] August 31, 1929. Letter from Katherine Pettit to Myrtle Weldon acknowledging her letter of August 27, 1929. in which she declined the invitation to come to judge at the Fair. Pettit agrees to the substitution of Miss [Ida] Hagman. She shares with Miss Weldon that “…I have never felt quite save [sic] in having the Experimental Station men especially, select a speaker for us. Thompson Bryant came up one Fair time, fetching a very charming lady, who could speak well but she brought her samples of silk with her and spent all the time telling our audience how to match silks and colors and what kind of silks to buy, when we spend all our time tell thing [sic telling?] that silk is not suitable for this part of the country and that the cotton dresses they have been wearing are better tasted for the mountains. So if Miss Hagman can give one of the good talks that I have heard you give so many times, we shall be so glad to have her.” Pettit then gives instruction for travel for Miss [Ida] Hagman.

[012] September 4, 1929. Letter from Ida Hagman to Katherine Pettit accepting her invitation to be a judge and to speak at the Pine Mountain Community Fair. She notes “…Will you kindly suggest a subject that you think will have an especial appeal to the women and girls? Do you think that they would be interested in a talk on the homemaker and her job, in which I should briefly analyze the difference between the house responsibility to achieve the latter? …”

[014] September 4, 1929. Letter from Myrtle Weldon (State Leader, Home Demonstration Agents, Cooperative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics, State of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky.) to Katherine Pettit. Assures Pettit of Hagman’s abilities and describes her travel plans. Weldon suggests that Hagman accompany Mrs. [Roxie] Perkins across the mountain.

[015] September 11, 1929. Letter from Katherine Pettit to Mr. J.M. Feltner, London, Ky. Relieved he is speaking at Fair; provides supply train information.

[016] September 14, 1929. Letter from J.M. Feltner (Asst. State Leader, Cooperative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics, State of Kentucky, London, Ky.) to Katherine Pettit. Describes his travel plans and asks advice about traveling on horseback.

[017] September 20, 1929. Letter from Wm. S. Webb (College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Physics, University of Kentucky, Lexington) to Katherine Pettit. Describes his travel plans, using L and N train, and his schedule.

[018] September 24, 1929. Letter from Katherine Pettit to William S. Webb, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky. Agrees to his plans; has engaged rooms at Club House, Putney for him and Dr. Cavenaugh; provides options for train travel.

[019] October 3, 1929. Letter from Katherine Pettit to Mr. J. M. Feltner, College of Agriculture, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky. Thanks him for speaking at the Fair. “We would not for anything miss another calling contest, and it was engineered so skillfully by you….”

[013] October 3, 1929. Letter from Katherine Pettit to Ida Hagman. Pettit thanks Hagman for her speech at Fair Day and noted that the people enjoyed it. She asks Hagman “I wish now that you could come up here sometime and go around the country with Miss [Marian] Kingman to speak to the country folks all around and tell them what you told us on Fair Day and anything else you think they ought to know. Won’t you do this sometime?”