This exhibition of images from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries explores how Londoners traveled in and around the city over time. It begins by highlighting the Deshkan Zibii / Thames River. The Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee traveled its waters before and after the arrival of newcomers. The exhibition also explores horses, bicycles, automobiles, trains, and airplanes as modes of transportation, as well as the infrastructure and services that supported them. All of these shaped London as they connected the city and its residents to the world.
Getting Around London invites you to look at the London of the past in new ways. It encourages you to think about how modes of transportation shaped Londoners’ experience of the city and its development. It also asks you to consider the future, something that our current climate emergency makes particularly urgent. For instance, London was once a walkable community from its founding in 1826 and well into the late 19th century, can it become one again? How can public transit best serve the community? What is the place of cars in the downtown core? The answers to these types of questions are links to our social, cultural, economic, and environmental well-being. They will shape the London of tomorrow and the experience of the city we love.
Image: Hupmobile, 1913. Gift of F. Innes Hammond, 1996.