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Our Southern Highlanders
No other book on the Southern Appalachians is more widely known or cited.
"Awonderful book. I like it especially for its color and anecdotes. It is a classic, not only for its accuracy and breadth of insights into the people of the region, but because these people themselves are so interesting and strong."
--Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
530 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1913
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August 29, 20244+🪕🪕🪕🪕
Scottish highlanders in America commands my attention. Think Jamie Fraser.
However, I read this because I’m Scotch-Irish on my father’s side whose ancestors first settled in the US in North Carolina. Also, I love all things Appalachia. I was concerned it might be a bit dated (1913). It’s not except for parts where he talks in the present tense about how things are there now when he was there then.
Living and working as a librarian in St. Louis, Kephart succumbed to what he later called "nervous exhaustion" and feeling that urban life was the problem moved to North Carolina, choosing a very simple lifestyle in the mountains with a “nature-as-healer” approach. Fair to say he really took to it.
Eventually active in the establishment of the Appalachian Trail, his later writings were devoted to the movement that culminated in the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
My kind of man even if he isn’t named Fraser.
This turned out to be way more interesting and entertaining than I was expecting, combining history, sociology, and biography all at once. I’d like to think my ancestors had a part to play in this:
“The south began to realize what a long, lean, powerful arm of the Union it was that the southern mountaineer stretched through it very vitals; for that arm helped hold Kentucky in the Union by giving preponderance to the Union sympathizers in the Blue-grass; it kept the east Tennesseans loyal to the man; it made West Virginia as the phrase goes, ‘secede from the secession’; it drew out a horde of one hundred thousand volunteers when Lincoln called for troops, depleting Jackson County, Kentucky of…every male under sixty years of age and over fifteen; and it raised a hostile barrier between the armies of the coast and the armies of the Mississippi. The North never realized, perhaps, what it owes for its victory to this non-slave-holding southern mountaineer.”
Tullach Ard! 🏴
Available free on the web with Project Gutenberg.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31709...
Or on Kindle
Scottish highlanders in America commands my attention. Think Jamie Fraser.
However, I read this because I’m Scotch-Irish on my father’s side whose ancestors first settled in the US in North Carolina. Also, I love all things Appalachia. I was concerned it might be a bit dated (1913). It’s not except for parts where he talks in the present tense about how things are there now when he was there then.
Living and working as a librarian in St. Louis, Kephart succumbed to what he later called "nervous exhaustion" and feeling that urban life was the problem moved to North Carolina, choosing a very simple lifestyle in the mountains with a “nature-as-healer” approach. Fair to say he really took to it.
Eventually active in the establishment of the Appalachian Trail, his later writings were devoted to the movement that culminated in the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
My kind of man even if he isn’t named Fraser.
This turned out to be way more interesting and entertaining than I was expecting, combining history, sociology, and biography all at once. I’d like to think my ancestors had a part to play in this:
“The south began to realize what a long, lean, powerful arm of the Union it was that the southern mountaineer stretched through it very vitals; for that arm helped hold Kentucky in the Union by giving preponderance to the Union sympathizers in the Blue-grass; it kept the east Tennesseans loyal to the man; it made West Virginia as the phrase goes, ‘secede from the secession’; it drew out a horde of one hundred thousand volunteers when Lincoln called for troops, depleting Jackson County, Kentucky of…every male under sixty years of age and over fifteen; and it raised a hostile barrier between the armies of the coast and the armies of the Mississippi. The North never realized, perhaps, what it owes for its victory to this non-slave-holding southern mountaineer.”
Tullach Ard! 🏴
Available free on the web with Project Gutenberg.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31709...
Or on Kindle
November 21, 2021
Horace Kephart And The Back Of Beyond
In the second chapter of his book, "Our Southern Highlanders: a Narrative of Adventure in the Southern Appalachians and a Study of Life among the Mountaineers" (1913, 1922), Horace Kephart wrote of some of the forces which had impelled him to leave his materially comfortable earlier life to live in primitive conditions in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina. Kephart wrote:
"When I went south into the mountains I was seeking a Back of Beyond. This for more reasons than one. With an inborn taste for the wild and romantic, I yearned for a strange land and a people that had the charm of originality. Again, I had a passion for early American history; and, in Far Appalachia, it seemed that I might realize the past in the present, seeing with my own eyes what life must have been to my pioneer ancestors a century or two ago. Besides, I wanted to enjoy a free life in the open air, the thrill of exploring new ground, the joys of the chase, and the man's game of matching my woodcraft against the forces of nature, with no help from servants or hired guides."
Kephart (1862 - 1931) sought the "Back of Beyond" to begin a new life. Born in Pennsylvania, educated at Yale, and trained as a librarian, Kephart had enjoyed a distinguished career as a scholar of the American West at the St. Louis Mercantile, Library. With the pressure of his job, an impending separation from his wife and six children, and increased problems with drinking, Kephart left his position and his family in 1903. He also suffered a nervous breakdown. In 1904, after a stay with his parents, Kephart moved alone to a small abandoned cabin in the Tennessee Mountains, which he describes as "far up under the lee of those Smoky Mountains that I had learned so little about. On the edge of this settlement, scant two miles from the post-office of Medlin, there was a copper mine, long disused on account of litigation, and I got permission to occupy one of its abandoned cabins." Kephart lived in the mountains and among mountaineers for three years. He continued to explore the mountains and study their people through the publication of both editions of "Our Southern Highlanders" and beyond.
As the first quotation above shows, Kephart was looking for a simple life free of the pressures of consumerism and career that he had encountered in St. Louis. His was a romantic quest. He sought independence, and self-sufficiency. He sought to be neither the servant nor the master of any other person. He wanted a life which included wildness and danger, as opposed to the conformity that he found in city life. He wanted to life with a minimum of material possessions and to enjoy nature, the woods, and the hunt. In many respects, Kephart's quest was part of what became a traditional American vision that started with Henry David Thoreau and his "Walden". But Kephart also wanted to get to know and write about the Appalachian mountain people he found. In many respects, Kephart's study of the mountaineers mirrored the qualities that Kephart came to admire and the way of life that Kephart tried to find for himself. Kephart intended his book to be read in this manner.
"Our Southern Highlanders" is a passionate, personal portrayal of a people Kephart believed that their fellow Americans had long neglected and little understood. He portrays the rugged existence of isolated mountaineers in clearings eking out a subsistence living from farming with little knowledge, in most cases, of the world beyond their hollows. The traits Kephart emphasizes throughout in the mountaineers are independence, freedom, and ability to make do with little.
It is a romantic study, but Kephart insisted that it was also an accurate one. In the Preface to the Revised edition he wrote: "No one book can give a complete survey of mountain life in all its aspects. Much must be left out. I have chosen to write about those features that seemed to me most picturesque. The narrative is to be taken literally. There is not a line of fiction or exaggeration in it".
In detailed chapters, Kephart portrays the geography and topography of the Great Smoky Mountains. Some of the chapters describe his own experiences, such as camping and hunting expeditions, in remote dangerous parts of the highlands, while others describe the history of the mountain people, their farming, family life, and dialect. The business of moonshining gets a great deal of attention, from the perspective of the mountaineers themselves. Kephart emphasizes the violent character of the region, with its lengthy history of blood feuds, tolerance of murder, and attempts to minimize the impact of the judicial system. While critical of the mountaineers in many ways, Kephart obviously loves them and their cherished independence. He makes the reader care about them as well.
Kephart's book has been criticized. He exaggerated the degree of isolation of his mountaineers. He tended to focus on the most back country part of the population and minimized the farmers in the lower regions who had prospered and adopted many of the traits of rural Americans elsewhere. Much of the criticism may be accurate, but I believe it misses the point. The book offers a romantic vision of a people with an undeniably distinct and harsh way of life. It celebrates the diversity of American experience in the portrayal of a group of people who were, and proudly so, outside the mainstream. The book is better read as a highly personal, insightful work than is a work of rigorous scholarship. It combines a picture of the particularized life of the mountaineers with Kephart's own ideals together with longstanding aspects of the American dream of independence and freedom. "Our Southern Highlanders" is a moving and classic American book.
Robin Friedman
In the second chapter of his book, "Our Southern Highlanders: a Narrative of Adventure in the Southern Appalachians and a Study of Life among the Mountaineers" (1913, 1922), Horace Kephart wrote of some of the forces which had impelled him to leave his materially comfortable earlier life to live in primitive conditions in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina. Kephart wrote:
"When I went south into the mountains I was seeking a Back of Beyond. This for more reasons than one. With an inborn taste for the wild and romantic, I yearned for a strange land and a people that had the charm of originality. Again, I had a passion for early American history; and, in Far Appalachia, it seemed that I might realize the past in the present, seeing with my own eyes what life must have been to my pioneer ancestors a century or two ago. Besides, I wanted to enjoy a free life in the open air, the thrill of exploring new ground, the joys of the chase, and the man's game of matching my woodcraft against the forces of nature, with no help from servants or hired guides."
Kephart (1862 - 1931) sought the "Back of Beyond" to begin a new life. Born in Pennsylvania, educated at Yale, and trained as a librarian, Kephart had enjoyed a distinguished career as a scholar of the American West at the St. Louis Mercantile, Library. With the pressure of his job, an impending separation from his wife and six children, and increased problems with drinking, Kephart left his position and his family in 1903. He also suffered a nervous breakdown. In 1904, after a stay with his parents, Kephart moved alone to a small abandoned cabin in the Tennessee Mountains, which he describes as "far up under the lee of those Smoky Mountains that I had learned so little about. On the edge of this settlement, scant two miles from the post-office of Medlin, there was a copper mine, long disused on account of litigation, and I got permission to occupy one of its abandoned cabins." Kephart lived in the mountains and among mountaineers for three years. He continued to explore the mountains and study their people through the publication of both editions of "Our Southern Highlanders" and beyond.
As the first quotation above shows, Kephart was looking for a simple life free of the pressures of consumerism and career that he had encountered in St. Louis. His was a romantic quest. He sought independence, and self-sufficiency. He sought to be neither the servant nor the master of any other person. He wanted a life which included wildness and danger, as opposed to the conformity that he found in city life. He wanted to life with a minimum of material possessions and to enjoy nature, the woods, and the hunt. In many respects, Kephart's quest was part of what became a traditional American vision that started with Henry David Thoreau and his "Walden". But Kephart also wanted to get to know and write about the Appalachian mountain people he found. In many respects, Kephart's study of the mountaineers mirrored the qualities that Kephart came to admire and the way of life that Kephart tried to find for himself. Kephart intended his book to be read in this manner.
"Our Southern Highlanders" is a passionate, personal portrayal of a people Kephart believed that their fellow Americans had long neglected and little understood. He portrays the rugged existence of isolated mountaineers in clearings eking out a subsistence living from farming with little knowledge, in most cases, of the world beyond their hollows. The traits Kephart emphasizes throughout in the mountaineers are independence, freedom, and ability to make do with little.
It is a romantic study, but Kephart insisted that it was also an accurate one. In the Preface to the Revised edition he wrote: "No one book can give a complete survey of mountain life in all its aspects. Much must be left out. I have chosen to write about those features that seemed to me most picturesque. The narrative is to be taken literally. There is not a line of fiction or exaggeration in it".
In detailed chapters, Kephart portrays the geography and topography of the Great Smoky Mountains. Some of the chapters describe his own experiences, such as camping and hunting expeditions, in remote dangerous parts of the highlands, while others describe the history of the mountain people, their farming, family life, and dialect. The business of moonshining gets a great deal of attention, from the perspective of the mountaineers themselves. Kephart emphasizes the violent character of the region, with its lengthy history of blood feuds, tolerance of murder, and attempts to minimize the impact of the judicial system. While critical of the mountaineers in many ways, Kephart obviously loves them and their cherished independence. He makes the reader care about them as well.
Kephart's book has been criticized. He exaggerated the degree of isolation of his mountaineers. He tended to focus on the most back country part of the population and minimized the farmers in the lower regions who had prospered and adopted many of the traits of rural Americans elsewhere. Much of the criticism may be accurate, but I believe it misses the point. The book offers a romantic vision of a people with an undeniably distinct and harsh way of life. It celebrates the diversity of American experience in the portrayal of a group of people who were, and proudly so, outside the mainstream. The book is better read as a highly personal, insightful work than is a work of rigorous scholarship. It combines a picture of the particularized life of the mountaineers with Kephart's own ideals together with longstanding aspects of the American dream of independence and freedom. "Our Southern Highlanders" is a moving and classic American book.
Robin Friedman
September 29, 2012
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is my favorite place on Earth and, as I learned in Ken Burns' National Parks, I owe its existence to Horace Kephart. Kephart was an alcoholic librarian in turn-of-the-century St. Louis who abandoned the life of an urban information professional to hunt and fish and write sporting books and articles in a log cabin at the 'back of beyond.' He dried out, slowly connected with the insular community of cagey mountaineers and, having settled permanently in nearby Bryson City, he lobbied tirelessly for the successful establishment of what became America's most-visited national park in the environs of his erstwhile highland abode. At the time Kephart was writing, long before the TVA, let alone the interstate highway system, the Southern Appalachians comprised a sort of uncharted, here-there-be-dragons region. "With an inborn taste for the wild and romantic," Kephart writes, "I yearned for a strange land and a people that had the charm of originality...in far Appalachia, it seemed that I might realize the past in the present, seeing with my own eyes what life must have been like to my pioneer ancestors a century or two ago."
This book is a clear-eyed portrait of the people who call themselves 'mountain folk," whom most Americans dismiss as hillbillies. Kephart says he writes with the intent of dispelling the caricature of the mountaineer as 'a tall slouching figure in homespun, who carries a rifle as habitually as he does his hat,' but he goes on to devote significant chunks of his narrative to moonshine and feuds. Our Southern Highlanders is respectful, even admiring, of the hard-scrabble hillfolk, while managing to avoid the sentimental distortions found in many ethnographic studies of 'unspoiled' cultures. I loved it, but as an alcoholic librarian of Scots-Irish hillbilly extraction, I reckon I was inclined to favor it.
This book is a clear-eyed portrait of the people who call themselves 'mountain folk," whom most Americans dismiss as hillbillies. Kephart says he writes with the intent of dispelling the caricature of the mountaineer as 'a tall slouching figure in homespun, who carries a rifle as habitually as he does his hat,' but he goes on to devote significant chunks of his narrative to moonshine and feuds. Our Southern Highlanders is respectful, even admiring, of the hard-scrabble hillfolk, while managing to avoid the sentimental distortions found in many ethnographic studies of 'unspoiled' cultures. I loved it, but as an alcoholic librarian of Scots-Irish hillbilly extraction, I reckon I was inclined to favor it.
December 27, 2025
Participant ethnography from before the term was coined. Kephart's sweeping statements and strong belief in ethnicity as destiny (I was going to say "race science" but that implies that Black people appear in the narrative, which they almost entirely do not) can be grating to a modern reader, as is his devotion to eye dialect, but his core observations on the impact of economic policy on living conditions and culture are worth reading. And I enjoyed going through the dialect chapter oscillating between "huh, that is interesting dialect, never heard it before" and "but Kephart, that's just a normal turn of phrase?"; it's fun to see what's spread into the wider linguistic world and what hasn't in the century since Kephart was horrified by a mountaineer talking about "loving" food.
March 17, 2017
Powerful truth then and now
This work is plum full of powerful truth that still rings true in modern times. I spoke with my grandfather before he passed about questions I had about our mountain ancestors. He answered honestly and bluntly. He told about how our family either proudly supported the union during the civil war or deserted from the Confederates as they "didn't have no dog in that hunt". He talked about running from the revenuers on Saturday and sitting with them in church on Sunday. Feuds with neighbors and in-laws over the smallest slight. Kephart has confirmed so many of his tales and rememberings. I am proud to be descended from such strong people. (I'm also proud to be little bit more educated and world-exposed)
The last few chapters get a bit verbose and unending compared to the exciting yards about the shiners and hunters in the beginning. Again I am amazed at how similar today's mountain folk are to the descriptions given in this 100 year old book
This work is plum full of powerful truth that still rings true in modern times. I spoke with my grandfather before he passed about questions I had about our mountain ancestors. He answered honestly and bluntly. He told about how our family either proudly supported the union during the civil war or deserted from the Confederates as they "didn't have no dog in that hunt". He talked about running from the revenuers on Saturday and sitting with them in church on Sunday. Feuds with neighbors and in-laws over the smallest slight. Kephart has confirmed so many of his tales and rememberings. I am proud to be descended from such strong people. (I'm also proud to be little bit more educated and world-exposed)
The last few chapters get a bit verbose and unending compared to the exciting yards about the shiners and hunters in the beginning. Again I am amazed at how similar today's mountain folk are to the descriptions given in this 100 year old book
June 17, 2025
The paperback copy of "Our Southern Highlanders" kept by my Dad in our mountain cabin in Cashiers, NC was so thumbed through that it was twice as fat as a new copy. We had copies at home, but this one stayed there for family and guests, and was referred to so often that notations, tic marks, and underlining filled the pages.
In reading the Ron Rash novel "Saints on the River," centered on the Chattooga River that connects NC, SC, and Georgia and was like my mountain back yard, a Rash character mentions Horace Kephart, William Bartram, and Wendell Berry as influences. Which brought me back to Kephart and gives me a way to grieve my Dad, reading these familiar and beloved pages once again.
In reading the Ron Rash novel "Saints on the River," centered on the Chattooga River that connects NC, SC, and Georgia and was like my mountain back yard, a Rash character mentions Horace Kephart, William Bartram, and Wendell Berry as influences. Which brought me back to Kephart and gives me a way to grieve my Dad, reading these familiar and beloved pages once again.
April 30, 2020
This is a really interesting book to me, maybe only because Kephart lived where my grandfather grew up 30 years after the book was published. In my opinion, Kephart does a great job of capturing the backwoods of Appalachia. Some chapters are fascinating, telling stories of moonshining and bear trapping. Other chapters are a little harder to get through, such as the behaviors of wild hogs. Some chapters left me thinking, "Oh, maybe that's why my family..." I can see myself looking back to this book in the future, but not necessarily as a fun read.
September 8, 2017
This one has been on the "To Read" stack a long time. Written in 1913 and considered a "classic", the book is a social history of the mountain folk of the Great Smoky Mountains. The chapters on moonshining and dialect were my favorites. The author lived among the Highlanders near Bryson City NC and helped get the Smokies turned into a National Park.
November 21, 2016
This is a surprisingly funny and touching book in which Horace Kephart details his experiences with the people of Appalachia -the mountain regions of Kentucky, Tennessee, northern Georgia, and North Carolina. His writing is never condescending or judgemental, which I appreciate. Equally interesting is Mr. Kephart himself. I suppose modern psychologists would have a field day with his story, but whatever it was that inspired him to pack up and move to some of the most remote territory in America at the start of the 20th century, it makes for an interesting read.
"Highlander" is a term that seems romanticized these days, no doubt to an influx of a book genre I affectionately refer to as "kilt porn". In Kephart's time, it seems more of another word for "hillbilly", or at least a term for someone that chooses to live in a harsh and isolated, yet beautiful area. Keep in mind that many Appalachian folk are in fact the descendants of Scotch-Irish immigrants, so the term "highlander" serves a dual purpose.
The Appalachians have tolerable weather and decent soil, but it's the structure of the mountains that keep them so isolated. Residents use up the thin topsoil in a few planting seasons, then pack up and move on. It's so isolated that they can't get farming tools that would help them make use of terracing or other farming techniques. Since they move around so often, they have no incentive to build what we would consider inhabitable homes (the description of a chimney literally being a hole in the wall and no one wearing shoes is sobering).
Most interesting is the moonshine industry. Hats off to the people for coming up with a way to make money. It's also kind of sad. They live in such a remote area and are so poor that they can't transport their meager crops for sale. But take a corn crop and mash it down to something much more portable and voila, moonshine and some money.
The lack of religion and casualness of death surprised me. Perhaps this has changed since Mr. Kephart's time. No Bible Belt stereotypes here. I'm pleased that the hospitality traditions have stuck around; I think Mr. Kephart would like that. It is clear he cares deeply for these people and wants to help them out of poverty. His heart and the reader's heart breaks at how difficult their lives are and how they're oblivious to it.
On the downside, the book can be difficult to read. There isn't much organization to the topics and I needed more background information. It's not Mr. Kephart's fault, but it would be nice to have an annotated volume for us modern readers.
The chapters on feuds and medical care were terrifying. I suspect readers 100 years ago were also frightened. I never knew that the Hatfield and McCoy feud started over a pig.
April 25, 2015
Our Southern Highlanders, now over a hundred years old, is the first real examination and narrative of the people of the southern Appalachians, and Smoky mountains. The fascinating thing from the standpoint of a century away, is how Kephart writes of the land and people and history, while fully realizing the encroaching modernity that was just beginning to forever change folk ways that had existed since early settlement and was traced back to Scotland.
As a frequent visitor to the Great Smoky Mountains park, I know this land and its people to some level, but only in the sense that the land Kephart knew has been set apart as a national park, ringed by tourist attractions and a people that certainly are not as self reliant as the people Kephart knew.
Yes, Kephart does, with many anecdotes, spend much of this book on some extreme examples - the focus on moonshining in particular, but as a narrative memoir, this makes sense to some degree to focus on the more dramatic and interesting characters he meets, rather than a fully rounded out description.
The great thing to really appreciate about this work, written about three decades before the founding of the national park, is to show how these real people were rooted in time and place and could see what became a storm on the horizon with all the changes of modernity and what it meant to family, work, their faith and way of life. He honored a forgotten people, which is the greatest achievement of this book.
As a frequent visitor to the Great Smoky Mountains park, I know this land and its people to some level, but only in the sense that the land Kephart knew has been set apart as a national park, ringed by tourist attractions and a people that certainly are not as self reliant as the people Kephart knew.
Yes, Kephart does, with many anecdotes, spend much of this book on some extreme examples - the focus on moonshining in particular, but as a narrative memoir, this makes sense to some degree to focus on the more dramatic and interesting characters he meets, rather than a fully rounded out description.
The great thing to really appreciate about this work, written about three decades before the founding of the national park, is to show how these real people were rooted in time and place and could see what became a storm on the horizon with all the changes of modernity and what it meant to family, work, their faith and way of life. He honored a forgotten people, which is the greatest achievement of this book.
October 13, 2022
I bought this book when I visited Smokey Mountains National Park last year. Very interesting read and learning about the history and people of the Appalachians. The book was written over 100 years ago and insightful to learn how isolated and unknown this part of America was at the turn of the 20th century.
December 2, 2012
Interesting to me because I am a descendant. His portrayal of the Southern people come from his superior attitude of himself. Interesting none the less. It brings images of another time and place.
June 11, 2019
Our Southern Highlanders made its way to my bookshelf in a mysterious way. But, according to "The Rules" - these are rules that guide what I read (one of the reasons that I read what I read is if someone gives me a book, I have to read it) - I read this book.
It is a portrayal of mountain highlanders in the southeastern US during the 1910s and 20s. The author's thesis is that these people are overlooked, underappreciated, and yet, fascinating. The book was an excellent look at people that many of the country don't recognize. One fact stands out from the book - the area is larger in size than the United Kingdom yet much, much smaller in population. He details hunting with highlanders, moonshining, and the geography of the place. He describes the challenges of travel in the region, a fact to which I can attest.
If you're interested in the South, this is a primer on a part of it that doesn't always get enough press. The book dates itself with some accidental racism, but that can be understood as the culture of the day, as unfortunate a reason as that is.
The best line of the book occurs in the second chapter, "The Back of Beyond."
"The back country is rough. No boat nor canoe can stem its brawling waters. No bicycle nor automobile can enter it. NO coach can endure its roads. Here is a land of lumber wagons, and saddle-bags, and shackly little sleds that are dragged over the bare ground by harnessed steers. THIS IS THE COUNTRY THAT ORDINARY TOURISTS SHUN. (THAT LINE IS SO GOOD!). And well for such that they do, since whoso cares more for bodily comfort than for freedom and air and elbow-room should tarry by still waters and pleasant pastures. To him the backwoods could be only what Burns called Argyleshire: "A country where savage streams tumble over savage mountains, thinly overspread with savage flocks with starvingly support as savage individuals."
It is a portrayal of mountain highlanders in the southeastern US during the 1910s and 20s. The author's thesis is that these people are overlooked, underappreciated, and yet, fascinating. The book was an excellent look at people that many of the country don't recognize. One fact stands out from the book - the area is larger in size than the United Kingdom yet much, much smaller in population. He details hunting with highlanders, moonshining, and the geography of the place. He describes the challenges of travel in the region, a fact to which I can attest.
If you're interested in the South, this is a primer on a part of it that doesn't always get enough press. The book dates itself with some accidental racism, but that can be understood as the culture of the day, as unfortunate a reason as that is.
The best line of the book occurs in the second chapter, "The Back of Beyond."
"The back country is rough. No boat nor canoe can stem its brawling waters. No bicycle nor automobile can enter it. NO coach can endure its roads. Here is a land of lumber wagons, and saddle-bags, and shackly little sleds that are dragged over the bare ground by harnessed steers. THIS IS THE COUNTRY THAT ORDINARY TOURISTS SHUN. (THAT LINE IS SO GOOD!). And well for such that they do, since whoso cares more for bodily comfort than for freedom and air and elbow-room should tarry by still waters and pleasant pastures. To him the backwoods could be only what Burns called Argyleshire: "A country where savage streams tumble over savage mountains, thinly overspread with savage flocks with starvingly support as savage individuals."
April 10, 2020
Easily the seminal work in early portrayals of Appalachia, Kephart presents a flawed but fascinating portrait of the region's people, history, and culture. While he balances frank criticism with tempered (often understanding) explanations of the reasons for peculiarities in Appalachian folkways, he more than once exudes condescension. Furthermore, for a student of history - specifically in the Turner school of frontier theory - his explanations of historical processes occasionally gloss over crucial counterpoints to his arguments. A case in point is his failure to acknowledge pockets of mountaineers who fought for the Confederacy, including those near his own adopted home of Bryson City, when tracing the loyalties of mountain residents. His summarization of how they came to populate the region is also a bit unsatisfsctory. Other faults, including the book's rambling organization, do not obscure its remarkable originality and utility, however. Kephart's anthropological sense, though biased by some preconception, provides an intimate and detailed account of what was, at the time, a largely unknown and misunderstood culture and region. For his efforts and his complicated advocacy, he deserves an appreciable respect.
January 13, 2021
I've been aware of the name Horace Kephart most of my adult life and in fact have read some excerpts from his writings. Our Southern Highlanders is truly a scholarly work that brings to light the lives of those we know so little about in rural Appalachia, America. Kephart lived among the mountain folk for many years and was accepted by them comfortably. The book covers their history and genealogy, their mannerisms and style of living. It goes into great detail about their views and why these views exist; about their pride and stubborn attitudes; about how they disdain modernity and progress for their simpler way of life. I found fascinating the chapter about their speech and how it is rooted in old English, twisted somewhat, but with sound foundations in speech we have lost as a nation. They are loyal, family oriented and distrustful of government. Their isolation has given bloom to the seedlings of their origins, while most of the rest of the nation has moved on, uprooted from those more basic values and attitudes about our world. A fascinating book, and important reading for those who wish to understand our mountain neighbors more profoundly.
July 24, 2017
Forget Hillbilly Elegy, if you want to read about the people and culture of southern Appalachia, this book is for you. Kephart moved to the Smokey Mountains in the early 20th century and was the first outsider to live among and write about the mountain people. Through a series of vignettes and analytical chapters on culture, Kephart explains who lives in the mountains and how they are so unique from the rest of America. Also, by discussing how the landscape has helped to shape the people who live there, he describes the rugged mountains themselves. If you have visited the Smokies, those place names will ring true to you and help you imagine how much the mountains have changed in a century. Though it seems as if a third of the book is about moonshining, Kephart really delves deep into the culture and the history of the people and how they came to be such independent but loyal Americans. His last few chapters on the dialect and the history of the Scotch-Irish really flesh out why today's "hillbillies" are such a unique subculture in America.
May 25, 2019
As George Ellison's first-rate, 47-page introduction indicates, this book is “at once historical, sociological, and autobiographical,” a book that reveals as much about the author and his humanistic philosophy as it does about the “Southern Highlander.”
Kephart's insights about mountain culture are often fascinating and his prose well crafted. But it should be noted that Kephart's isolated mountaineers were poorer and more prone to crime and violence than were the average residents of the Smokies at the turn of the twentieth century, certainly so in comparison with contemporary inhabitants of Cades Cove.
Kephart's belief that mountain speech descended from Chaucer and Shakespeare and that mountain culture was grounded in that of the Highland Scots is now, at best, disputed. Finally, the author's romanticized treatment of moonshining should be read in light of his own bouts with alcoholism and his death in an automobile accident caused by a driver who had been drinking the stuff.
Kephart's insights about mountain culture are often fascinating and his prose well crafted. But it should be noted that Kephart's isolated mountaineers were poorer and more prone to crime and violence than were the average residents of the Smokies at the turn of the twentieth century, certainly so in comparison with contemporary inhabitants of Cades Cove.
Kephart's belief that mountain speech descended from Chaucer and Shakespeare and that mountain culture was grounded in that of the Highland Scots is now, at best, disputed. Finally, the author's romanticized treatment of moonshining should be read in light of his own bouts with alcoholism and his death in an automobile accident caused by a driver who had been drinking the stuff.
April 28, 2025
This book was fascinating. I spend a lot of time in the southern highlands and you often see traces of the people that used to live on these now public lands. This book really describes how life was. Sure, it's dated in some ways but it seems about as thorough a personal account could be. There are some generalities made, but it is so well written and engaging. Considering its "academic" nature that's impressive.
I'd recommend you read this book if you ever venture to the hills and hollers of Appalachia, are interested in American history, or enjoy a little moonshine here and there :D
I'd recommend you read this book if you ever venture to the hills and hollers of Appalachia, are interested in American history, or enjoy a little moonshine here and there :D
August 25, 2019
If you're curious about life in Appalachia during the early 1910/20s, before the mountains were mapped out, before highways and the Blue Ridge Parkway were here to show off the grand balcony look no further. Hoarce Kephart does a beautiful job writing about subjects from religion, farming, to moonshine making. His descriptions of early settlers give a glimpse into the past and how life was in rural Appalachia.
September 3, 2024
This book written in 1913 was fascinating, as my “people” are from the southern highlands - my grandparents’ families. Although holding some old fashioned thoughts and evaluations of mountain people, I found this a fascinating book, easily accessed online through Google Books. I admired the primary author’s (Horace Kephart)commitment to research by living in a mountain cabin for a time. He wrote of the highlanders with affection and respect, for the most part as well.
January 1, 2020
Kephart's classic presents an examination of the people, culture, traditions, dialect, etc. of the Southern Highlands in the southeastern United States around the turn of the 19th to 20th century. My favorite part when reading about the people who settled this region of the country is where they originally came from and how they got there.
April 26, 2020
For anyone interested in the history of the people who once lived in the Great Smoky Mountains, this will be a decent read. It's long, winding, and I think could have been cut in half. But the relationships Horace Kephart built with the people on that land endured and allowed him a rare glimpse into their lives.
December 25, 2021
Recommended by a friend who is nearly as much an outdoorsman as Kephart was. A remarkable anthropological study of the mountaineers of the Southern Wilds. Though the deepest mysteries of the region remain hidden from Kephart, and from us (his readers), the scratch on the surface is enough to tell us that there are great depths in the heights.
May 12, 2017
Worthwhile read if you're interested in Appalachia, great exploration of this region and its culture. Kephart's writing is pretty punchy, although it dragged a bit at the end - hard to believe it's over 100 years old.
September 20, 2018
Not to be read through once and put away, I find new things to learn and enjoy each time I look at it. I finally decided to put it on my list today as we are returning to the mountains and a quick review brought newfound interest in finding the places and picturing the stories found here.
February 4, 2021
This is a great book. So much to learn about the history of the Appalachian population. Photos, conversations, exploration of life in the rugged terrain, early 1900's but some insight into what is still there today.
June 12, 2025
Could not recommend this book enough if you are wanting to learn the history of America’s eastern mountain chain and its people. Many of the things written about here from the 1920’s still hold true/ explain the culture of the area today.
June 24, 2017
fascinating overview of the Appalachian culture in the early 1900's by a professor who studied real time, the people and environs.
March 17, 2018
As a person who always wanted to be Alan Lomax, Horace Kephart comes in second.
Spellbinding.
Spellbinding.
July 24, 2018
Love! A real and intriguing picture of life in the Southern Highlands in the early 19th century. Beautifully written and engaging.
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