By James Cusick – In the 1920s, the small movie production company of Norman Studios, in Jacksonville, Florida, became a vehicle for starting the careers of numerous African-American actors and actresses. Prominent among them was John Lawrence Criner (1898-1965), a member of the famed New York acting group…
By Rachel Laue and James Cusick – For Veterans Day 2021 we highlight those who served in the 868th Engineer Aviation Battalion of the U.S. Air Force during World War II. This African-American unit supported the 5th Air Force in the Pacific Theater between 1940 and 1945.
By Rachel Laue – William E.B. Hayman was born in 1837 in Devon, England. It is unclear when Hayman emigrated to the United States, but by 1880 he resided in Newport, Rhode Island, with his wife Rebecca, and his three children, Willie, Clara, and Emma. He owned a business in…
By James Cusick – October 5th marks the birthday of folklorist, activist, writer and Klan-fighter William Stetson Kennedy (1916-2011). He would have been 105 years old today! And although Stetson is no longer here in the flesh, his words and warnings about the dangers we are facing from white supremacy…
This year marks the 200th anniversary of Florida’s entry into the United States. As a result of the Adams-Onís (or Transcontinental) Treaty, the two Spanish colonies of East and West Florida were transferred from Spain to the United States and became a single American territory, initially with twin…
Above – Image of a well-to-do free woman of color (detail) from a Mexican casta painting. Ilona Katzew, La Pintura de Castas: Representaciones Raciales en el México del Siglo XVIII (Turner, 2004) One of the odder episodes in Andrew Jackson’s brief tenure as governor of Florida was the court…
The new territory of Florida entered the American Union with a population that still represented the core of its colonial population under Spain. Although American settlers would quickly migrate to Florida in search of land – the population rose from 8,000 people to 34,730 in just 10 years –…
Twin miniatures of John Houston McIntosh (1772-1836) and Eliza Bayard McIntosh (1769-1847) show a well-to-do couple of the early 1800s who lived in both Florida and Georgia. Eliza wears the high Empire style and lace cap of a young married woman. John Houston wears the tailcoat, waistcoat, and neckcloth…
By Rachel Laue, Graduate Research Assistant, 2021 The stories we hear of pioneer lives conjure a certain set of images. Often they are of hardy men breaking new ground, planting new groves, and going off to war. The contributions of women in these stories are typically depicted as domestic,…
By Rachel Laue, Graduate Research Assistant (2020-2021) What do the letters of an orange-grove obsessed young man named Pliny Reasoner and an unknown woman’s handwritten romance novel have in common? More than you might think, as I have learned. I am a fourth year PhD candidate at UF,…
