The Roads that Lead to Lincoln:
|
 From New Salem to Springfield and on the trail of the Eighth Judicial Circuit through central Illinois, we follow Lincoln as he sets out as a young man to work as a store clerk, postmaster, surveyor, and then as a lawyer. He is elected to the Illinois General Assembly and the U.S. House of Representatives. He runs for U.S. Senate, and then he is elected as the nation's 16th President. When the Civil War is all but over, he is assassinated, and his funeral train makes a somber journey into Illinois at Chicago, then southwest to Springfield. |
In the final section of the presentation, we take a virtual tour along Route 66, the 8th Judicial Circuit, the Great River Road, and the Lincoln Highway in search of sites related to the life of Abraham Lincoln. The tour includes images of the places visited by Lincoln, as well as monuments and museums dedicated to remembering and interpreting his legacy. The tour includes the well-known sites, such as New Salem State Park; but also included are unmarked historic locations, such as the places where Mary Todd Lincoln lived in Chicago. The emphasis is on the places that travelers can visit to better understand Lincoln while enjoying the historic highways of Illinois. Standard Presentation DetailsOur PowerPoint presentations last 45-60 minutes and involve as much audience interaction as practical. We encourage and prefer time to be set aside at the end of the presentation for Q & A and discussion. We provide the PowerPoint files and can use our own laptop computer. We can supply other audio/video equipment (LCD projector, screen audio, microphone) if unavailable at the venue. All four of our current presentation offerings, The Roads that Lead to Lincoln, Historic Route 66, Route 66 on a Tank of Gas, and No Little Plans include archival postcard views and photographs as well as current views. Musical segments are included with video slideshow accompaniment. We strive to entertain as well as enlighten, and to give the patrons an in-depth experience with information they can use for their own explorations. |
Click Here to view or print out this page as a .pdf file. Contact Us for more information on Windy City Road Warrior Presentations! |
No Little Plans: The Roads of Daniel Burnham's Plan of ChicagoThe year 2009 is the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Plan of Chicago by Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett. At the time, Daniel Burnham was the world’s most famous architect, and his firm’s designs were both prolific and trend-setting. The Plan of Chicago was instrumental in influencing the development of Chicagoland as we know it today: Chicago’s vast lakefront parks, double-decked Wacker Drive and the Michigan Avenue Bridge, and the Forest Preserves of Cook and neighboring counties were all concepts contained in and championed by the Plan. |
 In our presentation No Little Plans, we look at Burnham and Bennett’s concepts for road building that included grand boulevards as well as a system of radiating and encircling highways throughout Chicago and the suburbs. They wrote, “While good highways are of great value to the terminal cities, they are of even greater value to the outlying towns, and of greatest value to the farming communities through which they pass." The roads would assist farmers in bringing their goods to market, and would be useful for family excursions and holidays. |
The presentation looks at the four encircling and many radiating highways proposed by the Plan, and how that plan differed markedly from our current dependence on tollways and expressways. Burnham and Bennett proposed a system that would add a new dimension to our existing system of surface transportation and would become an integrated piece along with rail and surface transport already in place. We look at how different Chicagoland might be if we had not dismantled our streetcar and much of our passenger rail system in favor of near-complete dependence on cars and trucks. Standard Presentation DetailsOur PowerPoint presentations last 45-60 minutes and involve as much audience interaction as practical. We encourage and prefer time to be set aside at the end of the presentation for Q & A and discussion. We provide the PowerPoint files and can use our own laptop computer. We can supply other audio/video equipment (LCD projector, screen audio, microphone) if unavailable at the venue. All four of our current presentation offerings, The Roads that Lead to Lincoln, Historic Route 66, Route 66 on a Tank of Gas, and No Little Plans include archival postcard views and photographs as well as current views. Musical segments are included with video slideshow accompaniment. We strive to entertain as well as enlighten, and to give the patrons an in-depth experience with information they can use for their own explorations. |
Click Here to view or print out this page as a .pdf file. Contact Us for more information on Windy City Road Warrior Presentations! |
Presentations Customized for YOU!With sufficient lead-time, we can customize our presentations to the specifications of the customer. Our resources include information that can be used to create programs for any specific segment of highway and transportation history relating to Chicago, or to Illinois, or to the corridors of transportation and commerce for which the city and state serve as hubs. We stand ready to meet any challenge within the scope of our archival resources. |
Standard Presentation DetailsOur PowerPoint presentations last 45-60 minutes and involve as much audience interaction as practical. We encourage and prefer time to be set aside at the end of the presentation for Q & A and discussion. We provide the PowerPoint files and can use our own laptop computer. We can supply other audio/video equipment (LCD projector, screen audio, microphone)if unavailable at the venue. All four of our current presentation offerings, The Roads that Lead to Lincoln, Historic Route 66, Route 66 on a Tank of Gas, and No Little Plans include archival postcard views and photographs as well as current views. Musical segments are included with video slideshow accompaniment. We strive to entertain as well as enlighten, and to give the patrons an in-depth experience with information they can use for their own explorations. |
Click Here to view or print out this page as a .pdf file. Contact Us for more information on Windy City Road Warrior Presentations! |
