Reviews
Umble offers a historic perspective on how members of the close-knit communities and their leaders responded to the challenges posed by the intrusion of the telephone into long-standing traditions of work, silence, and visiting in the early 1900s... A book that is useful in fostering understanding of the origins, philosophy, and lifestyle of the Plain People and enjoyable for its often humorous account of what life was like in America before the telephone reached out and touched everyone.
An excellent piece of work that makes an original and substantial contribution to multiple fields: anthropology, sociology, American studies, communication, history, and cultural studies. The scholarship is sound and the analysis is superb. Well-written and highly readable, this book is wonderful.