What do you think?
Rate this book
George Masa: A Life Reimagined
From Cornell University librarian Janet McCue and documentary filmmaker Paul Bonesteel comes the first comprehensively researched biography of the visionary Japanese photographer whose dedication to art and conservation helped spur the national park movement in the Great Smoky Mountains and the creation of the Appalachian Trail.
What moves a person to leave all that they have known for something new, something different, something adventurous?
In this fascinating historical biography, coauthors Janet McCue and Paul Bonesteel answer fundamental questions that have swirled around the man known as George Masa ever since the young Japanese immigrant stepped off a train in the mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina, one summer day in 1915. What Masa’s biographers reveal—through letters, journal entries, train tickets, and public records scattered from Japan to the Great Smoky Mountains—brings into focus for the very first time the personal struggles and triumphs of an emerging environmental hero.
Until now, little has been widely known of Masa beyond the striking images he captured of the Smokies that played a pivotal role in justifying their perpetual protection within the boundary of a national park—a park that is now the most visited in the United States. In his life, Masa shared scant details about his background with his Asheville friends and revealed nothing of the sights and sounds from the native home that shaped his upbringing.
In the years since he died penniless in 1933, many have wondered how this singular figure with a slight frame—friendly and likable yet “quiet and retiring in nature with most people”—managed to make such a dramatic impact on those within his adopted Appalachian community and far beyond.
Although attention to Masa faded for a time, Paul Bonesteel’s 2002 documentary film The Mystery of George Masa kindled renewed interest in the photographer’s life and accomplishments.
In 2009, awareness of Masa as a trailblazing conservationist increased tremendously once again through the six-part Ken Burns documentary The National America’s Best Idea. The fourth installment of the series, titled “Going Home,” focuses specifically on George Masa and Horace Kephart as charismatic collaborators and conservationists who advocated for the creation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
More recently, in 2019, Janet McCue co-authored the award-winning Back of A Horace Kephart Biography along with the late George Ellison. In their thorough biography, McCue and Ellison devote a chapter, “Congenial Comrades” to the close and perhaps unlikely friendship of Horace Kephart and George Masa.
Now collaborating to tell Masa’s story in full for the first time with the benefit of years of research conducted in both the United States and Japan, McCue and Bonesteel explore how an immigrant far from home who endured more than his fair share of trials—scrutiny from the Bureau of Investigation in 1918, harassment from the Ku Klux Klan in 1921, then the collapse of the economy, his business, and his health in the early 1930s—ultimately chose to dedicate himself to conservation in Southern Appalachia.
What moves a person to leave all that they have known for something new, something different, something adventurous?
In this fascinating historical biography, coauthors Janet McCue and Paul Bonesteel answer fundamental questions that have swirled around the man known as George Masa ever since the young Japanese immigrant stepped off a train in the mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina, one summer day in 1915. What Masa’s biographers reveal—through letters, journal entries, train tickets, and public records scattered from Japan to the Great Smoky Mountains—brings into focus for the very first time the personal struggles and triumphs of an emerging environmental hero.
Until now, little has been widely known of Masa beyond the striking images he captured of the Smokies that played a pivotal role in justifying their perpetual protection within the boundary of a national park—a park that is now the most visited in the United States. In his life, Masa shared scant details about his background with his Asheville friends and revealed nothing of the sights and sounds from the native home that shaped his upbringing.
In the years since he died penniless in 1933, many have wondered how this singular figure with a slight frame—friendly and likable yet “quiet and retiring in nature with most people”—managed to make such a dramatic impact on those within his adopted Appalachian community and far beyond.
Although attention to Masa faded for a time, Paul Bonesteel’s 2002 documentary film The Mystery of George Masa kindled renewed interest in the photographer’s life and accomplishments.
In 2009, awareness of Masa as a trailblazing conservationist increased tremendously once again through the six-part Ken Burns documentary The National America’s Best Idea. The fourth installment of the series, titled “Going Home,” focuses specifically on George Masa and Horace Kephart as charismatic collaborators and conservationists who advocated for the creation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
More recently, in 2019, Janet McCue co-authored the award-winning Back of A Horace Kephart Biography along with the late George Ellison. In their thorough biography, McCue and Ellison devote a chapter, “Congenial Comrades” to the close and perhaps unlikely friendship of Horace Kephart and George Masa.
Now collaborating to tell Masa’s story in full for the first time with the benefit of years of research conducted in both the United States and Japan, McCue and Bonesteel explore how an immigrant far from home who endured more than his fair share of trials—scrutiny from the Bureau of Investigation in 1918, harassment from the Ku Klux Klan in 1921, then the collapse of the economy, his business, and his health in the early 1930s—ultimately chose to dedicate himself to conservation in Southern Appalachia.
- GenresNonfiction
320 pages, Paperback
Published September 10, 2024
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 11, 2025
What an incredible view into the life of one of the key players in establishing Great Smoky Mountains NP. This book is so much more than a biography. Anyone interested in the park, its history, the history of Asheville and the Grove Park Inn, or the Appalachian Trail coming to be will find this book a treasure trove of information. The writing kept my interest and left me asking many of the same questions the authors ask. I want to know more, to have someone fill in the historic blanks that still remain. Truly an incredible story!
July 4, 2024
This book is a phenomenal look into the never-before-now known life of George Masa. Thoroughly researched and beautifully written, it’s not only a biographical story of the photographer, but also the city of Asheville in the early 20th Century. Highly recommend.
Read
August 11, 2025Fascinating story about Masa and Asheville between 1915-1933. Masa was a driver for creating Appalachian Trail and Great Smoky Mountains National Park with an unbelievable backstory and a drive to capturing Western North Carolina as no else could.
March 3, 2026
Truly an inspiration to get a glimpse into the life of someone who devoted much of their life to giving us one of our greatest National Parks
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews