The material lives of rural upcountry women improved dramatically by midcentury-yet in becoming middle class, Walker concludes, the women found their experiences both broadened and circumscribed.

Melissa Walker has done an admirable job of mining oral interviews, TVA records, letters, diaries, and farming magazines to piece together the story of how women contributed to the family income... Walker deftly negotiates the intersection of race, class, and gender. -- "Journal of East Tennessee History"