Author Description

From Cornell University librarian Janet McCue and documentary filmmaker Paul Bonesteel comes the first comprehensively researched biography of the visionary Japanese photographer whose dedication to art and conservation helped spur the national park movement in the Great Smoky Mountains and the creation of the Appalachian Trail. What moves a person to leave all that they have known for something new, something different, something adventurous? In this fascinating historical biography, coauthors Janet McCue and Paul Bonesteel answer fundamental questions that have swirled around the man known as George Masa ever since the young Japanese immigrant stepped off a train in the mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina, one summer day in 1915. What Masa's biographers reveal--through letters, journal entries, train tickets, and public records scattered from Japan to the Great Smoky Mountains--brings into focus for the very first time the personal struggles and triumphs of an emerging environmental hero. Until now, little has been widely known of Masa beyond the striking images he captured of the Smokies that played a pivotal role in justifying their perpetual protection within the boundary of a national park--a park that is now the most visited in the United States. In his life, Masa shared scant details about his background with his Asheville friends and revealed nothing of the sights and sounds from the native home that shaped his upbringing. In the years since he died penniless in 1933, many have wondered how this singular figure with a slight frame--friendly and likable yet "quiet and retiring in nature with most people"--managed to make such a dramatic impact on those within his adopted Appalachian community and far beyond. Although attention to Masa faded for a time, Paul Bonesteel's 2002 documentary film The Mystery of George Masa kindled renewed interest in the photographer's life and accomplishments.