Journey Stories

Each of us has a powerful journey story deep in our personal heritage.  It may be a story of a family uprooting itself in order to stay together, or of sons and daughters moving to another land, or of a distant ancestor. Americans have always been mobile.  

Farmers, mechanics, entrepreneurs, immigrants, and slaves built American society over four centuries.  Travel over trails, rails, rivers, roads, and in the sky shaped the American cultural and economic landscape. 

Highlands Museum of the Arts(MOTA) has been selected as a Museum on Main Street site to host Journey Stories, a traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution.  The Florida Humanities Council has selected and funded six rural organizations throughout the state to host the exhibition for six weeks each, and to develop companion programming that connects their stories to the themes in the exhibition. MOTA will host Journey Stories from December 8, 2012, to January 19, 2013.  The exhibit will examine the intersection between modes of travel and Americans' desire to feel free to move.  The story is diverse and focused on immigration, migration, innovation, and freedom.  It is accounts of immigrants coming in search of promise in a new country; stories of individuals and families relocating in search of fortune, their own homestead, or employment; the harrowing journeys of Africans and Native Americans forced to move; and, of course, fun and frolic on the open road. 

With 2012 marking the centennial of Sebring, it is particularly fitting that the local histories and the effects that different groups of settlers have had on our our culture will be highlighted in special exhibits and companion events throughout 2012 and 2013. With Highlands County's traditions rooted in agriculture, in the military, in tourism, and special influences such as motor sports, there is a rich diversity to draw from in developing local interest programs to inform, to educate, and to just delight the community.

Volunteers will have a large part in the success of this venture.  Can you help?  Contact us by email, or phone 863-385-6682.

 

 

Families waving good-bye to troops, Decatur, IL, 1944 Family and friends say goodbye to troops in Decatur, Illinois, June 1944. As an advertisement for the Association of American Railroads claimed, “Every month—two million members of our armed forces board American railroad trains under military orders to ride away on somber, terrible, necessary business—the business of America’s salvation—the business of war.” Courtesy of the Herald & Review, Decatur, IL		Man standing next to car with “Oregon or Bust” written on it Vernon Evans stands next to his family’s car during a stop along their journey from South Dakota in July 1936. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-130705

 

Journey Stories is part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and State Humanities Councils nationwide. Support for Museum on Main Street has been provided by the United States Congress.

Funding for this program was provided through a grant from the Florida Humanities Council with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.