Barns don’t just dot rural Pennsylvania, they dominate it. After all, before there was coal and steel, there was farming. And with farms came barns, often built before the family’s house.

Captivated by the many barns he saw as he drove around Pennsylvania, R Thomas Berner embarked on a three-year quest to find stories about barns and then photograph the barns. He finally settled on 36 barns in 23 counties.

The author, R Thomas Berner, is a ninth-generation Pennsylvanian, descended from Swiss-Germans who arrived in Philadelphia in 1733. Distant cousins still farm in Schuylkill County. He is a professor emeritus of journalism and American studies at the Pennsylvania State University.