The 21st Show

Atlanta, Illinois is the next stop on our Route 66 journey. The American Giants Museum restores iconic large size statues of figures in American culture.

A film made in Central Illinois is getting its big premiere. Vijay M. Rajan, writer and director of the psychological thriller “Dark Soul River" joins the program.

We continue our series reflecting on 100 years of Route 66 — particularly the 300-or-so miles of it that span the 21st state. However, Route 66 goes well beyond the borders of Illinois passing through Missouri, New Mexico, Arizona, and California and this is the subject of a new film.

As we continue our journey on Route 66, we’re stopping in Bloomington-Normal to check out the McLean County Museum of History.

We continue our Route 66 journey heading southwest to the city of Joliet. Operating from 1858 through 2002, the Old Joliet Prison is now a tourist site. A local history expert takes the 21st Show through the prison highlighting its history and significance to the city.

Route 66, America’s most famous highway is turning 100 this year, and Illinois is bound up in more than 300 miles of its stories. To kick off our week-long series and begin our statewide journey, the 21st Show traveled to the start of Route 66, in the heart of downtown Chicago

Nearly 3,000 Americans were killed on the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. Twenty-five years later, Illinoisans share stories of where they were and how the events of that day affected them.

Tristan Ahtone is a member of the Kiowa Tribe and editor-at-large at Grist. His award-winning investigation “Land-Grab Universities” revealed how the 1862 Morrill Act turned nearly 11 million acres of Indigenous land into seed money for land-grant universities — including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Many pregnancies end not with birth, but with loss and that can leave a lasting mark on the people who experience it. A new book takes a deep dive into this.

Economist and sociologist Juliet Schor has spent years documenting how Americans are overworked — but her latest research suggests a solution: shaving one day off the workweek, with no drop in pay or (in many cases) productivity. She outlines these findings in a book, “Four Days a Week: The Life-Changing Solution for Reducing Employee Stress, Improving Well-Being, and Working Smarter.”