by Yvonne Honeycutt Baldwin (Author)

The first woman elected superintendent of schools in Rowan County, Kentucky, Cora Wilson Stewart (1875-1958) realized that a major key to overcoming the illiteracy that plagued her community was to educate adult illiterates. To combat this problem, Stewart opened up her schools to adults during moonlit evenings in the winter of 1911. The result was the creation of the Moonlight Schools, a grassroots movement dedicated to eliminating illiteracy in one generation. Following Stewart's lead, educato