In 1974, Paul M. Fink published Backpacking Was the Only Way, a memoir of exploration in the Smoky Mountain backcountry that is long out of print. The basis of the book was a journal kept from 1914 to 1938, combined with evocative photographs that Fink compiled into a manuscript he called Mountain Days. The manuscript is now considered to be a unique and insightful first-person account of the region. Containing rare historical accounts of the manways, camps, and cabins once used by adventurers exploring the mountains before the advent of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, this is the first widely-accessible publication of Mountain Days. This edition features a new foreword by Ken Wise, professor and director of the Great Smoky Mountain Regional Project at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville's John C. Hodges Library. An open access edition of Mountains Days is available from the Hunter Library at Western Carolina University.

Mountain Days: A Journal of Camping Experiences in the Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, 1914-1938

Biographies & Memoirs

Fink, Paul M.

Historical

Western Carolina University, Hunter Library

Long before the term "Affrilachia" became popular, Victoria A. Casey McDonald spent decades gathering the stories of her family and neighbors in North Carolina's Jackson County. Her book, Just Over the Hill: Black Appalachians in Jackson County, Western North Carolina, presents a collection of narratives that illuminate the lives of African Americans in the region. These stories include her grandmother's, Amanda Thomas, who was born into bondage. The biographies and histories continue through the twentieth century and feature educators, soldiers, factory workers, ministers, athletes, and other community members. Originally published in 2012, this edition of Just Over the Hill with an afterword Marie T. Cochran continues to speak for these resilient individuals to generations to come.

Just Over the Hill: Black Appalachians in Jackson County, Western North Carolina

History

McDonald, Victoria A. Casey

Americas

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