Since Southern history, culture and architecture have often been downplayed in modern textbooks, many Americans have little concept of the Southern life in the days past. Here we see the families, the towns, the charm and elegance of the early South. The faces in these pictures show this region’s real spirit, and in many ways, this book does for the South what Walker Evans and James Agee’s book did for the Great Depression — reveal its haunting beauty undeniably.