Only a few mountain schools retained documents outlining specific projects undertaken during their formative years, but men and women working in the field sent reports to the association headquarters. These letters describe students’ daily routines and usually ask for additional funding. Other field reports describe the activities of garden clubs, sewing clubs, and canning clubs. Settlement school directors, extension agents employed by SIEA, and visitors to mountain communities commented on the progress being made, or lack of it, across the region.
After World War I, more field reports were published in the Quarterly Magazine than articles written by outside contributors. In some cases, reports were written by field workers, not commonly known for their contribution to a particular school, and those names should be added to the roster of women and men working for the betterment of a marginalized population.
From 1909-1926, the association published a small booklet distributed to members and potential supporters. The Quarterly Magazine contained a wide variety of Appalachian-related information on subjects as diverse as health care
The SIEA Collection offers a comprehensive regional perspective on social change over a seventeen-year period.
A Letter from Hindman by Ruth Huntington
Summer work of Field Secretary Cora Neal
Observations by Hindman summer extension worker Minnie Whitham
Wooton Settlement House – floods hamper getting wool to a weaver. Mary Large report
Martha Gielow successfully convinced prominent and wealthy Americans to serve as officers and trustees of the (S.I.E.A.). Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton University, North Carolina Episcopal Bishop Cheshire, Governor Warfield of Maryland, ex-Attorney General Charles Bonaparte, Senator John Sharpe Williams of Mississippi, and Honorable P.P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education were a few of the trustees in 1910. Seth Shephard, chief justice Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, served as (S.I.E.A.) president for many years; and Joshua Evans, Jr. of the Riggs Bank was treasurer for eleven years.
In the early years, the Southern Industrial Educational Association formed auxiliary chapters in New York, Maryland, California, Virginia, Alabama, and Pennsylvania. Each auxiliary had its own craft sale, social events, and membership drives. The New York auxiliary was the major financial contributor to the (S.I.E.A.) as a result of dedicated efforts by the president Mrs. Algernon Sydney Sullivan and the recording secretary Mrs. Livingston Rowe Schuyler. Though she was seventy years old when Gielow first approached her, humanitarian Mary Mildred Sullivan used her substantial influence to form the first auxiliary chapter and helped raise funds over the next eighteen years.
Over the years, (SIEA) money helped mountain settlement schools in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee.
Each auxiliary state had its own craft sale, social events, and membership drives. The New York auxiliary was the major financial contributor to the (SIEA).