Susie Keef Smith was seeking escape from a troubled home life and the havoc of childhood polio when she took a job as postmaster in Mecca, on the edge of California's Salton Sea. She and her cousin Lula Mae Graves set out to photograph the last of the prospectors, burro packers and stage stops in the remote desert to the east. They traveled by burro, foot and Ford though sandy washes and roadless canyons, armed with a .38 revolver and a large format camera. While making postcards for the Post Office spinner rack, the women were remade in the wilderness and wound up creating an unparalleled portrait of one of the lesser-known deserts in the West. Susie Smith's photos were nearly lost to history when upon her death they were tossed out by a county estate administrator. A savvy archaeologist jumped into a dumpster and rescued many of the photos in this book. Postcards From Mecca presents portraits of a mysterious land along with the story of its heroic chroniclers, self-taught documentary photographers of the 1920s and '30s. Postcards From Mecca is a remarkable tribute to life in the Mojave Desert in the 1920s and 1930s. Few photographers opted to endure the heat, isolation and exacting conditions incumbent to the desert and the work of these two women has given us a unique testament to the land and the people who lived there. Their work allows us to be there and experience a time and place that no longer exists. --JEAN STERN, Director, The Irvine Museum Collection at the University of California, Irvine, Institute and Museum for California Art The book is filled with the pictures they made but also pictures taken by others that show Susie and Lula filled with life and wandering free in a wild place. There is fine writing by Ann Japenga, Warner V. Graves, Robert B. Smith, Ronald V. May, Steve Lech, Russel L. Kaldenberg and Buford A. Crites that tells us the long lost stories of Susie and Lula, offering readers a personal glimpse of the hardships they faced and the spirit they faced them with. Combined with the pictures, the stories bring their life and times to us and make it all very real. What better thing can a story do? --Andy Romanoff, L'Oeil de la Photographie Together, Smith and Graves risked travel unchaperoned, often donning men's clothing and cowboy hats. In their photos, they can be seen joyfully handling cameras, guns, and kingsnakes, while at the same time capturing on film all the wilderness they encountered. --Winnie Lee, Atlas Obscura