Jeffrey Richardson, curator of the traveling “Route 66: The Road and the Romance” exhibit, will explain how artifacts were chosen as part of this month’s Route 66 Centennial Speaker Series.
The free streaming session will be broadcast at 2 p.m. Eastern time and 11 a.m. Pacific on Sept. 8 from the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles.
Connecting Chicago to Los Angeles, the 2,400-mile-long highway was a witness to history and a symbol for America on the move. The exhibition Route 66: The Road and the Romance traveled the iconic road from its inception in 1926 through the drama of the Great Depression to its heyday as a travel destination and the route’s eventual displacement by the Interstate Highway System.
The exhibition concluded with a contemporary look at the road and the movement for its preservation. Jeffrey Richardson, Exhibition Curator, will discuss how the exhibition came together, highlighting how the choices of historical artifacts from institutions and private collections across the United States explored different themes and stories of the Mother Road.
Richardson is the Executive Director of the McFaddin-Ward House Museum, a 1906 Beaux-Arts Colonial style mansion that reflects the lifestyle of the prominent family that lived in the home for 75 years and their contributions to the economic, social, and cultural history of Beaumont and the Texas Gulf Coast.
Jeffrey has an extensive background in museum management and historic preservation. He has held key positions at cultural institutions across the country, in cities big and small, from regional history museums and historic houses to Native cultural centers and public gardens. Jeffrey is the author of two books, Colt: The Revolver of the American West and Howard Hughes and the Creation of Modern Hollywood, and he has appeared as an expert commentator on over a dozen television programs, including Mysteries at the Museum, Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, and History Detectives.
A graduate of the University of Florida and Georgia Southern University, Jeffrey’s career began as the curator of Western history, popular culture, and firearms at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles. He later served as the curator of exhibits for the municipal museum system in Farmington, New Mexico. Shifting into administration, Jeffrey held the position of director of operations at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History outside Atlanta and then at Historic Columbia in South Carolina.
Registration for the free streaming event is here.