Online Exhibit: Appalachian People: She knows no other lot...

In 1904 Horace Kephart took a series of photographs in preparation for an upcoming publication. Of the many photographs taken, this one showing an older woman and a young boy was ultimately selected to appear in Our Southern Highlanders. This image, with the caption "At thirty a mountain woman is apt to have a worn and faded look" came from the 1921 edition of the book. In the 1922 edition, the caption changes to "She knows no other lot" and the photograph was moved to page 288, near Kephart's description of mountain women. This description from pages 214 to 215 of the 1921 edition reads: "Many of the women are pretty in youth; but her toil in house and field, early marriage, frequent child-bearing with shockingly poor attention, and ignorance or defiance of the plainest necessities of hygiene, soon warp and age them. At thirty or thirty-five a mountain woman is apt to have a worn and faded look, with form prematurely bent - and what wonder? Always bending over the hoe in the cornfield, or bending over the hearth as she cooks by an open fire, or bending over her baby, or bending to pick up, for the thousandth time, the wet duds that her lord flings on the floor as he enters from the woods -what wonder that she soon grows short-waisted and round-shouldered?"

Dave Brown's cabin was a dog trot style home in which the space between the sections was subsequently closed in with clapboard siding. The cloth and rope seen in the background of several of these photographs can be seen in this photograph of the cabin with members of the Brown family. Instead of the more recent clapboard addition, Kephart chose to pose the family members in front of the hand hewn log section where a partial hole in one of the logs is visible. Viewing the published photograph within the context of the related photographs shows the process of selecting images and examples that best fit the perceptions of Kephart and his audience.

Dave Brown Family & Friends

Alma Brown and Homer

An unidentified woman

G. W. Baumgardner

An Unidentified Youth

George Davis and Homer

Belle Brown and Homer Brown also appear among the people involved in another series of photographs, "Making Sorghum." The 1900 Census report for Barkers Creek Township in Jackson County includes the household of Dave Brown with the following individuals: David U. Brown, age 47; wife Mary A. Brown, age 47; daughter Almer Brown, age 21; son George M. Brown, age 17; Daughter Mary V. Brown, age 16; daughter Belle Brown, age 12; grandson Homer Brown, age 8 months; and brother-in-law George E. Davis, age 50.