The Riders
Shown getting into his Chrysler van above is U.S. Grant's great-great
grandson. Imagine touring the Vicksburg campaign with him riding shotgun.
What would it be like to meet the son or daughter of a Civil War soldier, follow
an Underground Railroad route with a former Freedom Rider or visit the last
Mohegans with a descendant of the historical Uncas and Daniel Day Lewis in
tow? In the course of its search for the living American past, History on the
Road will encounter academics, unreconstructed Confederates, working miners, cowboy poets, eyewitness' to history, clueless beauty academy drop-outs, moonshiners, celebrities known for their portrayals of historic characters and events, covered-wagon builders, antiquarians, Wobblies, Woodstock survivors, Salem witches, and the children and grandchildren of sodbusters, bluebellies, the enslaved and other historic figures. These and others will appear among History on the Road's colorful backgrounders, interview subjects and shotgun riders.
"They are our last frontier. They shot the railway-train when it first came, And when the Fords first came, they shot the Fords. It could not save them. They're dying now. Or being educated, which is the same. One need not weep tears for them, but when the last moonshiner buys his radio, and the last, lost, wild-rabbit of a girl is civilized with a mail-order dress, something will pass that was American, and all the movies will not bring it back.
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Stephen Vincent Benet, "John Brown's Body," 1928
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