For more than a century these remarkable glass-plate negatives, quiet portraits of everyday people who lived and traveled through early Oklahoma, sat unseen and forgotten. These images, taken by photographer S.J. Tyler between 1913 and 1943, offer one of the most intimate and human glimpses ever discovered of what life looked like before “Route 66” even had a name.

In 2023, this extraordinary archive was unexpectedly found in New York City. Inside were never-before-seen portraits of farmers, mothers, musicians, laborers, Native families, African American workers, and Latino travelers, just ordinary people captured with extraordinary dignity. At a time when America was deeply divided, S.J. Tyler photographed everyone with equal respect. His lens was color-blind long before society was.

These are the Faces of the Mother Road, and their stories were almost lost forever.

We are now building a major traveling exhibition: Faces of the Mother Road: The Lost Portraits of S.J. Tyler. We want to share this rediscovered collection with the world. Created in partnership with the Route 66 Alliance and guided by noted historian and author Michael Wallis, this exhibition is both a historic recovery effort and a celebration of American identity.

Part photography exhibit, part visual time capsule, the show invites audiences to rediscover the people who lived, worked, and traveled the earliest miles of what became America’s Main Street.

Why We Need Your Support:

These fragile, century-old glass plates require extensive, costly work to prepare for public display. Your support is essential to help us make that happen.

Our debut exhibition opens January 2, 2026 at 101 Archer, the University of Tulsa’s arts hub—officially launching Oklahoma’s Route 66 Centennial Year.

Your donation directly helps us bring these faces out of storage and into the light of history.