During Truck Driver Appreciation Week next week, Sept. 15-21, the United States Department of Transportation will host photographer Anne-Marie Michel’s “Sisters of the Road” photo exhibition, which DOT is calling a “powerful tribute to the women who keep America moving.” With an opening on Sept. 19, 2024, including a series of talks starting at 10:30 a.m. local time at USDOT headquarters, the public will get a look at Michel’s series of intimate portraits and stories of women among American truckers.
The Sisters of Road exhibition has its roots in a book released a couple years ago, and memorably reviewed by Overdrive‘s own contributor Long Haul Paul Marhoefer. Marhoefer included there an interview with Michel to tell the story of the book’s origins. He called “Sisters of the Road” a work refreshingly bereft of the “obligatory tropes of perpetual trucker victimology that have seemed to permeate nearly every published tome on this profession since 1980,” he wrote. “Missing, as well, are Michel’s own interjections on all that is wrong with ‘the industry.’ What surprises the reader in ‘Sisters of the Road’ is that it stands on its own as a powerful homage of haunting, iconographic beauty to the fierce resilience of America’s female truckers and the mythic spaces through which they travel.”
Find more information about the book and the operators features, including Walkabout Transport owner Debbie Desiderato (picture), at this link to the project’s official website.
Earlier this year, owner-operator Debbie Desiderato, herself featured in “Sisters of the Road,” led a convoy across the country on a tour of the exhibition from the San Francisco area to a photo event in Texas, then with stops ending at the Mid-American Trucking Show in March.
Now, “we are thrilled to bring ‘Sisters of the Road’ to the U.S. Department of Transportation during Trucker Appreciation Week,” said Michel. “This is more than just an art exhibit; it’s a celebration of the incredible women who defy stereotypes and redefine what it means to be a trucker in America. Their stories deserve to be heard, and this is a perfect end to the Sisters of the Road USA tour — with the trucker women themselves in attendance and representing ‘Sisters of the Road’ at this event.”
The exhibition features a diverse group of operators, from long-haul drivers to those who navigate the complexities of logistics. These women have been photographed in their element—on the road, in their trucks. Accompanied by their personal stories, the portraits reveal the human side of an industry often overlooked, USDOT noted in its press release.
Attendees will have the opportunity to talk with many of the women featured in the exhibition, who will also be in attendance. For more information about “Sisters of the Road,” visit the official website, or follow the links below to prior coverage in Overdrive.
**Long Haul Paul’s feature with author-photographer Anne-Marie Michel: “‘Sisters of the Road’ a haunting, iconographic portrait of professional truckers”
**“On-highway toward MATS with the ‘Sisters of the Road’ book tour, and its owner-operator pilot”