The Ozark region, located in northern Arkansas and southern Missouri, has long been the domain of the folklorist and the travel writer--a circumstance that has helped shroud its history in stereotype and misunderstanding. With Hill Folks, Brooks Blevins offers the first in-depth historical treatment of the Arkansas Ozarks. He traces the region's history from the early nineteenth century through the end of the twentieth century and, in the process, examines the creation and perpetuation of conflicting images of the area, mostly by non-Ozarkers.

Covering a wide range of Ozark...

"Life in the Leatherwoods" is one of the country's most delightful childhood memoirs, penned by an Ozark native with a keen, observant eye and a gift for narrative. John Quincy Wolf's relaxed style and colorful characters resemble those of another chronicler of nineteenth-century rural life, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Wolf's acerbic wit and lucid prose infuse the White River pioneers of his story with such life that the reader participates vicariously in their log rollings, house-raisings, spelling bees, hog killings, soap making, country dances, and camp meetings. Originally published by Memphis...

The Ozarks is a place that defies easy categorization. Sprawling across much of Missouri and Arkansas and smaller parts of Oklahoma and Kansas, it is caught on the margins of America’s larger cultural regions: part southern, part midwestern, and maybe even a little bit western. For generations Ozarkers have been more likely than most other Americans to live near or below the poverty line—a situation that has often subjected them to unflattering stereotypes. In short, the Ozarks has been a marginal place populated by marginalized people. Historian Brooks Blevins has spent his life...