It was first published in 1937 by Viking Press, with a paperback version by Modern Age Books following quickly.

[1] For this pictorial survey about rural American South and its troubles, Bronx-born Bourke-White took the pictures, while Georgia-born Caldwell wrote the text.

The resulting portraits are by turns sentimental and grotesque, and she and Caldwell printed them with contrived first-person captions.

[3] The book's title is reminiscent of two short stories by Whittaker Chambers in The New Masses: "Can You Make Out Their Voices" (March 1931)[4] and "You Have Seen the Heads" (April 1931).

[4] The former story Hallie Flanagan (later director of the WPA's Federal Theatre Project) made into a popular play under the title "Can You Hear Their Voices?"