The Pack Horse Library Project under FDR's New Deal initiative was a Works Progress Administration (WPA) program that delivered books to Kentuckians in the remote regions of the Appalachian Mountains between 1935 and 1943. The pioneering program was a poverty relief effort during the Great Depression that eventually served 100,000 people through thirty different libraries. The Book Women tells the story of the courageous Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia who braved the elements as they delivered hope and a better life to their neighbors through the power of reading.