Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd

Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd (1873–1962) was an American social reformer who founded Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes, Kentucky.

Alice Spencer Geddes was born in Massachusetts and studied at Radcliffe College. In her early career in Boston, Alice Geddes worked as a journalist. In 1902, she was publisher and editor of The Cambridge Press, the first United States publication to have an all-female staff. [http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/spotlight/spotlight.jhtml?id=1300010 Spotlight: Alice Lloyd College] , Foundation Center] [http://www.alc.edu/ABOUT%20ALC/about/history.htm History] , Alice Lloyd College website (accessed March 10, 2008)]

In 1915 Alice Geddes Lloyd and her husband Arthur Lloyd moved to Knott County, Kentucky, with the goal of improving social and economic conditions,Judith Jennings, [http://www.jstor.org/view/00224642/di982421/98p0638c/0 Review of A College for Appalachia: Alice Lloyd on Caney Creek] , "The Journal of Southern History", 1996, pages 608-609] Carl Hoffman, [http://www.arc.gov/index.do?nodeId=1339 Appalachian Scene: Building Character on Campus] , "Appalachia Magazine", September–December 1997, published by the Appalachian Regional Commission] living at first in Ivis, Kentucky. Their initial work involved provision of health care, educational services, and agricultural improvements to the Appalachian region, funded by donations from East Coast states. In 1917 Alice Lloyd and her mother moved to Caney Creek, where she had been offered land for a school. She separated from her husband in 1918 and remained in Knott County. She named her Caney Creek home "Pippa Passes" after a poem by Robert Browning and in honor of donors from the New England Browning Society. [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,763811,00.html School in Caney Valley] , Time magazine, April 8, 1940]

Together with June Buchanan, a native of Syracuse, New York, who joined her in Kentucky in 1919, Lloyd founded 100 elementary schools throughout eastern Kentucky and opened Caney Junior College in 1923. The college offered a free education to mountain youth, who were required to promise to remain in the region or return after completing their education. There was a long waiting list for admission. Lloyd imposed strict rules on the students, including no jewelry, cosmetics, slang, or high-heeled shoes for girls and no tobacco, gambling, liquor, guns or "unauthorized meetings with the opposite sex" for boys.

Both Lloyd and Buchanan worked without pay at both education and fund-raising. Lloyd is said to have raised some $2.5 million for the college, mainly by typing and mailing fund-raising appeals. On December 7, 1955, Lloyd appeared on the "This is Your Life" television show,cite web|url=http://www.classictvinfo.com/ThisIsYourLife/TIYLEpisodeList.htm |title="This Is Your Life": Radio and TV Episode List |publisher=Classic TV Info |accessdate=2008-03-16] whose host Ralph Edwards made a direct fund-raising plea on her school's behalf, resulting in a large influx of donations. In 1997, the college's director of marketing and communications at the time, Stephen Reed, told a journalist, "We've still got people on our mailing and donor list who saw the show."

Lloyd served the college until her death in 1962. After her death, the college was renamed in her honor. Miss Buchanan served at Alice Lloyd College until 1988, when she died at the age of 100, having lived to see the 1984 opening of the June Buchanan School, a K-12 school on the Alice Lloyd College campus named in her honor.cite web|url=http://www.alc.edu/jbs/jbs.htm |title=The June Buchanan School |publisher=Alice Lloyd College |accessdate=2008-03-15]

References

Further reading

*"A College for Appalachia: Alice Lloyd on Caney Creek." By P. David Searles (1995). Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0813118832