For more than fifty years mountain-born Earl Palmer traveled the Southern Appalachians with his camera, recording his personal vision of the mountain people and their heritage. Over these year he created, in several thousand photographs, a distinctive body of work that affirms a traditional image of Appalachia—a region of great natural beauty inhabited by a self-sufficient people whose lives are notable for simplicity and harmony. For this book, Jean Haskell Speer has selected more than 120 representative photographs from Palmer’s collection and has written a biographical and critical commentary based on extensive interviews with the photographer. Palmer’s photographs, Speer argues, are significant cultural statements that depict not so much a geographical region as a particular idea of Appalachia.

Jean Haskell Speer is professor and director of the Center for Appalachian Studies and Services at Eastern Tennessee State University.