#route66: When In Illinois, Look Out For the Gemini Giant

One of the first major landmarks on the Mother Road is this space-age statue, a relic from a time when such monuments were popular.

by Rich Watson 

He stands thirty feet tall. He wears a bullet-shaped helmet and a blue-green jumpsuit. And he holds a miniature rocket in his hands. 

A movie superhero? Nope, he’s the Gemini Giant—one of many so-called “muffler men” across the country over the years and one of a number that remain along Route 66.

Ethel Waters, “Stormy Weather,” and the Cotton Club

This superstar of the mid-twentieth century gained her fame by singing a song which became an American classic, at a ritzy Harlem club.

by Rich Watson 

Ethel Waters had a spectacular career as a singer and an actress. As the latter, she was the first black star on TV and the second to get an Oscar nomination. 

As the former, she was known for singing one of the greatest songs in American history. She did it at a place famous for its array of black entertainers during the Harlem Renaissance era—the Cotton Club.

Poet Anne Spencer Represented the Harlem Renaissance While Living in Virginia

The Virginia writer was one example of the Harlem Renaissance’s influence beyond New York.

by Rich Watson 

Anne Spencer was a Harlem Renaissance-era poet notable for being one of the first black female poets to make the prestigious Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. She was active in the NAACP, as well as a respected librarian and gardener.

She did all this while living over four hundred miles south of Harlem itself.