Joseph Sargent Hall (1906-92) was a quiet but passionate man who in an unusual way became a missionary.  Hired by the U.S. National Park Service for the summer of 1937 to capture some of the speech and culture of the Great Smoky Mountains among people living in or displaced by the coming of the park, his spirit of adventure took him over a rough, dense landscape with only primitive roads.  He found himself forging life-long friendships and returning with heavy equipment to make recordings of the language and lore of the area that would become a legacy far beyond what he could have imagined.  In an interview in 1990, toward the very end of his life, he looked back and reflected on his contribution as a scholar:

"I was glad to make a collection which would be available for scholars for years to come and to recover some idea of how people lived in this particular section, so beautiful and so productive in many ways, and with people so strong in character and women carrying their part."

To learn more about Joseph Hall, you can read the article below.  You can also read a transcript of Michael Montgomery's 1990 interview with Hall, or you can meet Hall by listening to a recording of their conversation. To meet the people he recorded in 1939, go to the page "Hall Speakers and Transcripts."

Joseph Sargent Hall: The Man and His Work

Interview transcript

Interview Audio Part 1 

Interview Audio Part 2