At one point in Kim Michele Richardson's novel The Book Woman's Daughter, protagonist Honey Lovett discovers that a family friend attended a Moonlight School. The Moonlight Schools were the brainchild of Cora Wilson Stewart (1875-1958), an elementary school teacher and school superintendent in Rowan County, Kentucky. Born in the community of Farmers, Kentucky, she attended the Morehead Normal School (the term "normal school," derived from the French "école normale," referred to a teacher-training college), later known as Morehead State University, and the University of Kentucky before beginning her teaching career at the age of 20.

Stewart quickly discovered that the parents of many of her students were illiterate, and she decided to open the county's classrooms to the adults of the area. She reasoned that most of her hoped-for pupils would need to work during the day, and therefore proposed the classes be held at night on evenings when the moon was bright enough to light ...