THE BIG ROAD
FROM BETSY LAYNE TO ANN ARBOR AND BEYOND
by
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A history professor living in Boone, NC, leads a road crew on a photo shoot along U.S. Route 23. The primary objective is to photograph modern day life along this long American highway. The photo shoot begins in Asheville, NC, and proceeds north through six states to the Canadian border. The book of photographs will tell the story of a rural Appalachian family that migrated to cities connected by U.S. Route 23.
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About the Book
It is the 1940s as Garrison Yokum grows up in Betsy Layne, Kentucky. He enjoys sitting on the back porch with his cousins, watching trains haul coal to big cities, dreaming of what lies beyond the mountains, and traveling along the “big road,” also known as US Route 23, with his parents on Saturdays. But when Garrison is seven, work becomes even more difficult, dangerous, and precarious for his coal miner father, setting into motion a chain of events that ultimately leads them to Ann Arbor, Michigan, for a new life. From that point on, Route 23 becomes a focal point in Garrison’s life.
Decades later and now approaching retirement, Garrison makes another life-changing decision as he nears completion of a documentary on the migration of families from rural east Kentucky to the cities along Route 23. After he sets out on a road trip with his professional photographer granddaughter and two student interns, Garrison explores and captures life along the long, important American highway that helped many families secure better futures beyond the mountains of southern Appalachia.
The Big Road is a generational story that documents the experiences of those who migrated from southern Appalachia to bigger cities in the north by way of a memorable American highway.
About the Author
Highlander once lived among the coal fields of east Kentucky where he became aware of the hazards confronted by coal miners, and observed that many traveled US Route 23 to find safer, steadier work in factories. He is the author of One Wore Gray / One Wore Blue, and the grandson of immigrants from Ireland and Scotland who settled in Southwest Virginia.