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A letter from D-Day, June 6, 1944

In remembrance of D-Day, and in commemoration of its 80th anniversary, we offer a few excerpts from the letters of Irving Weintraub, a doctor and lieutenant in the medical corps, to his wife Elizabeth concerning the D-Day landing and his experiences immediately after. June 6, 1944 My Darling Bett:…

New Arrivals to the Florida LGBTQ+ Collection

Among the latest materials placed into our Florida LGBTQ+ Collection are additional issues of The Weekly News, the state’s pioneer newspaper for LGBTQ rights. Also on the way are materials documenting national reactions in the 1970s to Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign, which sparked called for a boycott of…

Florida is Calling and I Must Go

By Bridget Bihm-Manuel In 1915, Ivar Widing, a Swedish immigrant living in Boston, decided to sail to Key West alone in a small boat, called the “Nutshell,” which was only five feet wide and twelve feet long.  He left Boston on December 8 with a small number of supplies.  Each…

When Was it Published? Tips For Finding the Date of Ephemera

By Myla Wasser During my time at the George A. Smathers Library, I’ve worked extensively with the Florida Ephemera Collection. For each piece of ephemera I determined the genre, wrote and abstract with relevant keywords, and added the date of publication. In total, I have worked with…

Celebrating Juneteenth 2026

With Juneteenth approaching, its seems appropriate to draw attention to some recent additions in the P.K. Yonge Library that remind us of the ongoing fight to fulfill and endorse the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. First, we have acquired a facsimile of Briton Hammon’s A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings,…

A Report from Our Intern

By Myla Wasser My understanding of archives has been shaped by two specific classes in my undergraduate term. As one of my majors is history, I took a practicum and a seminar. Me, looking through materials in the James E. Ingraham Collection. Both classes focused on the process…

From 13 to 83, Julien Yonge Spent His Life Building a Library and a Legacy

Julien Chandler Yonge, about 15 or 16 years old – From an original photograph belonging to Joel Henry Horne. His cap bears the initials for the Alabama Male College (later Auburn) and his lapel pin shows the initials of his fraternity, Phi Kappa Alpha. This year marks the 145th anniversary…