She Come by It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs

Smarsh challenged a typically male vision of the rural working class with her first book, Heartland, starring the bold, hard-luck women who raised her. Now, in She Come by It Natural, originally published in a four-part series for The Journal of Roots Music, No Depression, Smarsh explores the overlooked contributions to social progress by such women – including those averse to the term feminism – as exemplified by Dolly Parton’s life and art.