Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd was a New England woman with a mission in life. In 1916 she settled on Caney Creek in Eastern Kentucky, determined to bring higher education to this remote corner of Appalachia. The school she founded, now Alice Lloyd College, continues to serve the area and its people and to stand as a tribute to Lloyd’s remarkable energy, determination, and vision. This education was provided free and required that the students abide by Lloyd’s very strict rules of conduct and pledge to remain in the mountains after graduating.

In the first full-scale study of Lloyd's life and work and the institution she founded, David Searles shows how this courageous and complex woman struggled through-out her long life against seemingly insurmountable odds to create an institution dedicated to improving life in Appalachia. But, as he acknowledges, not all of Lloyd’s efforts were benign. Her fundraising activities, though remarkably successful, relied on harmful stereotypes that caused resentment among her mountain neighbors. Her single-minded efforts to win support for her programs and her refusal to accept opinions contrary to her own angered may others working in the mountains. But the significance of Lloyd’s life goes beyond the facts of her achievement. Despite the negative aspects of her activities, Searles casts doubt on the now fashionable conclusion that the women who came to the mountains to do good created more problems than they solved.

P. David Searles is a former deputy director of the Peace Corps and former deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.