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Return to Route 66 at the Museum of Our National Heritage, March 3-September 9, 2001
All-night diners and roadside motels. Car radio tunes and
drive-through windows. The
American road trip is not just
about the destination. It's
about the journey, the lure of
the open road. And this
season, the mother of all
highways is a destination
unto itself.
Get your kicks—and your
kitsch—at the Museum of
Our National Heritage,
where Return to Route 66
takes museumgoers on an
unabashedly nostalgic tour
from the Windy City to
Hollywood. Sixty-six (count
'em!) contemporary
photographs by artist Shellee
Graham seek out the old
Route 66—most of which has
been replaced and
abandoned since the 1980s
in favor of newer, wider
highways. The exhibition's
historic images, ephemera,
and audio and video clips
revisit the highway's heyday,
exploring the impact of this
utterly American thoroughfare
on everything from pop music
to the development of the
West.
Built in the 1920s, during a
pre-Depression boom that
fueled America's first car
craze, Route 66 became a
trail for displaced Dust Bowl
families en route to California
in the 1930s, and a major
convoy course during World
War II. It wasn't until the
1950s and '60s that the
highway blossomed into a
family vacation route lined
with tourist attractions—a last
candy-colored hurrah before
falling into disrepair by the
1970s.
In addition to the exhibition
photographs, don't miss the
video loops of the classic
1960s TV series, "Route 66,"
audio recordings by Woody
Guthrie and other highway
troubadours, and the Model T
Ford in the lobby. And be
sure to check out the
computer hooked into current
Route 66 websites. That old
stretch of blacktop may be
gone, but in our collective
consciousness, this road
goes on forever. On view
through September 9.
MUSEUMS BOSTON • SPRING 2001
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