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Thursday was presentation day. I caught Russell S. Rein and Robert Casey
looking at their notes. Russell played a major role in organizing the
conference and handled today's MC duties. Robert delivered a very nice
presentation on Henry B Joy's 1915 trip entitled Three Men, Twelve
Cylinders, and 2800 Miles on the Lincoln Highway. The three speakers I
snapped not looking down are Brad Fuller, Henry B. Joy's great-grandson
and a man with a plan for a movie, Steven Stanford who delivered Albert
Kahn: Henry Ford's Architect, and Michael W. R. Davis whose talk was
entitled Arsenal of Democracy: The Auto Industry's Role in Defeating
the Axis in World War II.
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The presentations were followed by a buffet lunch and the buffet lunch was
accompanied by a fashion show. The fashion show was actually a history
lesson titled Fashion and the Automobile. The show included
professional models but much of the promenading was stylishly executed by
ladies of the LHA and the road's namesake made an appearance as well.
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The buses made one last appearance in the afternoon to carry us to a pair
of University of Michigan libraries with considerable Lincoln Highway
related material. Our first stop was the Bentley Historical Library where,
after a couple of presentations on how to find out what was at the library
and how to arrange access to it, we were allowed to look over the tables
filled with history. Henry B. Joy's scrapbook from his 1915 trip to San
Francisco was on display and so were several drawings from Jan Jensen, the
landscape architect for the Ideal Section and other highway areas.
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Our next and final bus stop was at the Hatcher Library. Original Lincoln
Highway Proclamation broadsides (donated by Russell Rein) were on display
with a slide show of some of the library's many digitized images playing
behind them. Much like the Bentley, the Hatcher had prepared a history
buffet for us, too.
The LHA banquet ended the day but I took no pictures. I just enjoyed the
meal and the presentations. Jim Cassler gave a presentation on next year's
conference. It was an open secret that it will take place in Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania. Because Pennsylvania has no active LHA chapter, the Ohio
chapter will host the event. A better kept secret was the possibility of
a post-conference tour of the National Road. I had first heard of this a
day before and I was skeptical. What would the LHA faithful think of a
an event on another road being associated with the conference. When Route
66 was mentioned as a tour ending path back to the Lincoln Highway, my
skepticism increased. My skepticism is rapidly vanishing, however. The
idea of a tour was enthusiastically received and the idea of doing it on
another historic road was welcomed. There were not even any protests on
the possibility of including Route 66. I think it's a go.
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