The Yankee Road

Who is a Yankee and where did the term come from? Join author Jim McNiven as he explores the emergence and influence of Yankee culture while traversing an old transcontinental highway reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific -- US 20, which he nicknames "The Yankee Road." The Yankee Road: Tracing the Journey of the New England Tribe that Created Modern America combines fascinating history with a travel narrative, taking the reader on a journey through the places Yankees and their descendants settled as they expanded westward. Using a physical road to connect locations important to the Yankee cultural "road," McNiven takes us on side trips into individual stories, introducing readers to the origins of such large-scale and diverse ideas as conservation, public education, telegraphy, mass production, religion, and labor reform. 

Volume 3 takes us from Chicago, the site of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, westward across northern Illinois to the Pacific shore at Newport, Oregon. Along the way, we will encounter the social activist and first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize, Jane Addams, as well as stories about four famous painters of western scenes.

Going westward, we meet Iowa Civil War heroine, Annie Wittenmeyer, and scientist, Edwards Deming, among others. In Nebraska there is 'Doc' Middleton, 'King of the horse thieves,' and the mass entertainers, 'Buffalo Bill Cody, Walt Disney, and P. T. Barnum.

In Wyoming, we see grandmother and housewife, Louisa Swain, who went shopping in downtown Laramie and made history as the first woman in history ever to legally vote in an official election.

Then, it is off along Route 20 to Yellowstone Park and its volcanic wonders. The road passes by Rexburg, Idaho, the birthplace of the inventor of television, and then goes into Oregon to Newport, named by a Mainer who had good memories of Newport Rhode Island, where he vacationed as a child.

Through these 3 volumes, Uncle Sam has accompanied us, by hitchhiking, then driving an early car past the Pennsylvania hills, until the road ends at the Pacific Ocean, where he stops to watch Captain Cook's ship, the Endeavour pass by on its way north, lit by a brilliant sunset.