From 1948 to 1968 Leslie Shedden recorded the mines, miners, townscape, and social events of the Cape Breton, Nova Scotia area, producing in effect an extensive historical document. In the essays, the photographs are placed within a broad-based context. Macgillivray details the region's history and the cultural consciousness of the population. Sekula writes on "the history of the representation of labour and photography's role in the instrumentalization of the human individual." The essays raise important issues regarding the history of photography, how photography is used in history, and the people of a specific region. Listed as one of the New York Times ten best photography books of 1983.

Besides his daily and common functions as a community photographer (portraits, advertising, work and school events, architecture), Leslie Shedden continuously worked on documentation of the working conditions in the coal and iron mines of Cape Breton. The photographic documentation was commissioned by Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation (DOSCO), the local coal mining corporation, which gave him access to the underground mines as well as to all other work areas. All major aspects of the mining activities, the conditions of manual labor, and the gradual transformation to mechanized mining are recorded in systematic and detailed photographs. An equally detailed systematic body of photographs recording the family and community life of the miners complements the body of photographic images documenting the labour conditions in one of the oldest North American coal mining districts.