Alliance for Guidance of Rural Youth records, 1887-1963 and undated, bulk 1914-1946

Source Collection

This digital collection comprises selected materials from the following archival collection at David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library:

Alliance for Guidance of Rural Youth records 1887-1963 and undated, bulk 1914-1946

Collection #RL.10067 | 21.5 Linear Feet (Approximately 15,900 items)

ABSTRACT
The Alliance for the Guidance of Rural Youth was a vocational guidance service organization originally created under the leadership of Orie Latham Hatcher as the Virginia Bureau of Vocations for Women (1914-1921), and later known as the Southern Woman's Educational Alliance (1921-1937). Disbanded in 1963. The records comprise an extensive set of organizational records for Alliance for the Guidance of Rural Youth and its predecessors. Series include correspondence, administrative files, project files, conference files, subject files, writings and speeches, publications, clippings, press releases, and photographic materials, which include prints and nitrate negatives. The records document the organization's evolution from its early focus on increasing vocational opportunities for educated southern women and rural high school girls to its later activities in providing county-wide vocational programming for rural youth. Additional subjects addressed in the papers and photographs include economic conditions throughout the South; migration patterns from U.S. rural regions to cities; Appalachian culture, including crafts and music; community life in the South; and employment for African Americans. The collection includes 42 matted platinum prints of rural citizens and scenes in Kentucky taken in the 1930s by noted photographer Doris Ulmann, and include a portrait of her assistant and folklorist, John Jacob Niles.

Collection Guide »