Muzzled Oxen: Reaping Cotton and Sowing Hope in 1920s Arkansas

In the 1920s, Genevieve Sadler left her home in California for what she thought would be a short visit to the Arkansas farm where her husband grew up. The visit lasted seven years, and Sadler's life was changed indelibly in the time she spent among the cotton farms near Dardanelle in Yell County, Arkansas.

Sadler, an accomplished and educated woman, felt out of place in the remote confines of this Arkansas hamlet. While she dutifully stayed busy keeping house and raising two boys under trying conditions, she also found time to write long and detailed letters back to her mother in California. When she returned home, her mother gave her the letters, which she later used as the basis for this engaging memoir with its rich portrait of a small town and its inhabitants, many of whom were poor cotton farmers working on shares.