Upper Laurel and Her People

Upper Laurel and Her People is a folk history of a rural mountain community in Madison County, North Carolina. Mrs. Brittain, the author, was born and reared in the Upper Laurel Community and has recorded this history from personal memory and oral tradition, adding only supplementary information from recorded records. Professional historians most often write histories from other books and the public record, neglecting the historical evidence of material culture and oral tradition that have survived in a community or family. Material culture consists of the physical artifacts of a people. Oral tradition is what a people remember and choose to pass on, by word of mouth, from one generation to another. It is from this evidence, not from books, that one can best understand the true spirit of a community. Upper Laurel and Her People reveals the noble spirit of a community living out its values in the larger world. Thus, Mrs. Brittain's account of that story is a very rare and special gift to posterity and all of us. -Richard S. Dillingham, Director Southern Appalachian Center Mars Hill College