In a 1971 commentary, the novelist and critic Joyce Carol Oates, who has some experience of Detroit, called The Dollmaker “our most unpretentious American masterpiece.” Most readers of the book would agree with her, and through the years appreciation for the work has grown, though proper recognition has never been given Harriette Arnow. The Dollmaker was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize but lost out to William Faulkner’s A Fable (1954). In 1984, the novel was made into a television film starring Jane Fonda.

Possibly Arnow’s Appalachian origins and subjects have caused the literary world to underestimate her. In actuality, qualifying as “our contemporary ancestors” gives Appalachian writers a rather distinct vantage point from which to examine America. So far, no one has demonstrated this better than Harriette Arnow in The Dollmaker, and her example has inspired such younger writers as novelist Gurney Norman in Divine Right’s Trip (1972) and poet Jim Wayne Miller in The Mountains Have Come Closer (1980).