2 September 2010

Margaret Morley, Old Fort, North Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #9

Margaret Warner Morley (1858-1963) was born in Iowa and educated in Brooklyn, but made her name in the southern Appalachians. She took postgraduate studies in biology in the USA, and moved to the North Carolina mountains around 1890, with a view to recording a way of life that was rapidly disappearing.

Morley lived in Tryon in Polk County, and spent many years photographing the flora and fauna and the people of western North Carolina. She wrote many books for children, but is most noted for her book for adults, The Carolina Mountains (1913), which includes a great deal of detail about the region and its people, and is considered an important work in this field. I first came across details about her today when visiting Old Fort Train Station and Museum, and the nearby Mountain Gateway Museum, where a number of Morley's photos are on display.

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