Highway 66 is the main migrant road. 66--the long concrete path across the country, waving gently up and down on the map, from the Mississippi to Bakersfield--over the red lands and the gray lands, twisting up into the mountains, crossing the divide and down into the bright and terrible desert, and across the desert to mountains again, and into the rich California valleys.
66 is the path of people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership, from the desert's slow northward invasion, from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there. From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads. 66 is the mother road, the road of flight.
The Grapes of Wrath,
John Steinbeck, 1939

THE MOTHER ROAD
2363 miles, from Chicago (IL) to Los Angeles (CA)


 
HD, Duration: 5hrs 11min 49sec.
2010-2011, captured from the screen using Google Street View

The clip on this page (2min 20sec) shows the road between miles 1894 and 1931, just outside Kingman (AZ).
More clips can be viewed here.

The full version will be on display at the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam (NL) from 25 june to 11 september 2011, as part of the exhibition New Topographics.

nfm

jansen

The Mother Road at the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam.


nfm

Publication The Mother Road available through Fw: Books

12 pages / 14 x 19 cm / colour / cahier / English. / Incl. double DVD, PAL region free DVD, colour, 5hr 11min 49sec / 12 euro (excluding shipping charges) / ISBN 978-94-90119-00-3
More info/order.