Heading to the Florida Folk Festival this weekend in White Springs?
Brush up on your favorite artists, or learn a few new tunes. On Florida Memory, you can listen to and download hundreds of Florida Folk Festival recordings from the 1950s to the 2000s.
Enjoy!
Program for the 1976 Florida Folk Festival
On May 21, 1722, Jesuit explorer and historian Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix visited Fuerte San Marcos de Apalache on Florida’s northern Gulf coast. Author of Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France avec le journal historique d’un voyage fait par ordre du roi dans l’Amérique septentrionnale (1744) and many other works, Charlevoix was among the first French historians of New France.
Excerpt from “Carte de la Floride et de la Georgie” (1806)
Charlevoix described his approach to the remote Spanish outpost: “About ten o’clock we perceived a small stone-fort, of a square form, with regular bastions; we immediately hung out the white-flag, and immediately after were told in French to proceed no farther.” After a few tense moments, the soldiers allowed Charlevoix and his captain to “speak with the governor: we went, and were very well received.” The defenders of Fuerte San Marcos de Apalache had reason to worry, as French pirates were known to frequent the region in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The commander of the fort invited the “officers and the principal passengers to dinner.” Before dining, however, the Spanish confiscated their “arms and ammunition,” promising to return them upon departure.
In his book, Charlevoix briefly recounted the recent perils of the Spaniards and Apalachees at the hands of English colonists and their Creek Indian allies who, in 1704, destroyed numerous settlements in the province. According to Cherlevoix, these raids reduced the Apalachee population from 7,000 to only 400 living near the fort.
Charlevoix described the land he encountered as “full of buffaloes and horses,” and the rivers as “narrow and full of alligators, but…well stocked with fish.” The Spaniards cautioned the French travelers to be wary upon leaving Fuerte San Marcos de Apalache. They warned that the “Indians at the Isle of Martyrs” had reportedly “empaled [sic] and eaten” marooned Spanish sailors.
The following day, the French expedition departed San Marcos de Apalache and headed west towards Pensacola and Mobile, then on to the Mississippi River to continue their survey of New France.
All quotes attributed to Charlevoix taken from Pierre de Charlevoix, Journal of a Voyage to North-America (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1966).
Emancipation was proclaimed in Tallahassee on May 20, 1865, 11 days after the end of the Civil War and two years after the proclamation was first issued by President Abraham Lincoln. For this reason, Emancipation Day in Florida is traditionally celebrated on May 20th.
Henry White playing guitar at an Emancipation Day celebration (1930s)
Emancipation Day Parade: Lincolnville, Florida (1920s)
Emancipation Day Parade: Lincolnville, Florida (1920s)
St. Paul A.M.E Church float: Lincolnville, Florida (1920s)
Parade float representing the medical auxiliary society: Lincolnville, Florida (1920s)
Standing in front of a car decorated for the parade: Lincolnville, Florida (1920s)
St. Benedict Catholic School parade float: Lincolnville, Florida (1920s)
The Queen and her court: Lincolnville, Florida (1920s)
African American workers and tenants celebrating Emancipation Day
at Horseshoe Plantation (1930s)
In the late 1950s, in order to keep pace with the Soviet Union, the U.S. government created a fictitious town named Apix (Air Products Incorporated, Experimental) to build and test rocket engines powered by liquid hydrogen.
Testing the XLR-115 hydrogen fueled rocket engine, Apix, 1958
Assembling Pratt & Whitney designed liquid hydrogen rocket engines, Apix, 1958
The project, codenamed “Suntan,” was highly classified and required a large degree of secrecy. Land near the testing ground in rural Palm Beach County was platted for houses to conceal the true nature of the site. Apix was given a bogus population to add to its cover as a small fertilizer-producing community.
Rocket engine test stands, Apix, 1958
By June 1959, the use of liquid hydrogen was determined to be too costly. The project was abandoned and Apix was dismantled.
Four open air rocket engine test cells and control rooms, Apix, 1958
On May 14, 1942, Congress approved an Act that allowed women to enlist for noncombat duties in the U.S. military. The Act led to the creation of the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), the Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency Service (WAVES), the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), and the Semper Paratus Always Ready Service (SPARS). Many Florida women were quick to sign up and serve their country.
Portrait of Sarah Kaplan during World War II
Jacqueline Cochran – internationally known aviator
In 1943 Jacqueline Cochran was appointed to the General Staff of the U.S. Army Air Forces to direct the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program. In 1945 she received the U.S. Distinguished Service Medal.
Annie Will Langford in her Navy uniform
Portrait of U.S. WAVES sailor Shirley Rudler in uniform: Orlando, Florida
Portrait of USMC-WR 1st Lieutenant Alice “Martha” Dorn
William A. Fishbaugh worked as a commercial photographer for more than 40 years. During his tenure as an employee of real estate developer George Merrick, Fishbaugh captured a remarkable visual history of the 1920s Florida Land Boom, particularly the development of Coral Gables, Miami, and Miami Beach. In addition to photographing homes, businesses, and attractions, Fishbaugh also documented area golf courses.
Miami Biltmore, early 1920s
Mr. Hirsch with caddies at the Coral Gables Country Club, 1924
Golf course construction, Coral Gables, 1924
Miami Biltmore, 1925
Julian Lifsey, William Crowley, an unidentified man, and Fonville McWhorter, Coral Gables, ca. 1925
Golfers at the Miami Biltmore, ca. 1925
Green in front of the Glen H. Curtiss home, Country Club Estates, Miami Springs, 1926
Coral Gables Country Club, 1926
Charles Thom, Coral Gables, late 1920s
Visit Florida Memory to see more photographs from the William A. Fishbaugh Collection.
Boys with a toy train set, Fort Meade, 1880s
Girl with toy lion and blocks, 1890s
Girls with their toys, Gainesville, ca. 1900
Ida Raa and her baby stroller, Tallahassee, ca. 1908
Girl holding a doll in a toy car, Pensacola, ca. 1910
Ted Mack with his toys, Bartow, ca. 1915
Jimmy Keith and his mechanical dog, Sarasota, ca. 1925
Arthur and Jack Courshon with a toy airplane, Miami Beach, ca. 1925
LeRoy Collins Jr. driving a toy car, Tallahassee, 1937
Sharon Monts-DeOca and her toy rabbit, Jacksonville, 1946
Seminole children in a toy wagon, Brighton Reservation, ca. 1948
Koreshan boy on a Castelli tractor pedal car, Estero, ca. 1950
Boys and girls with hula-hoops, 1950s
Minnie Doctor and child with Seminole dolls, Dania Reservation, 1961
Boy with toy castle and soldiers, Tallahassee, 1963
May is Florida Golf Month! Get out there and hit the links at one of the more than 1,200 golf courses in the Sunshine State. Enjoy a few of our favorite photographs of Florida golfers getting whacky.
Golfer standing on Rosie the elephant, Miami Beach, 1927
Ringling Circus clown Paul Jerome golfing in Sarasota, 1960
Marie Fajardo playing golf on Daytona Beach, 1960
During the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries, midwives commonly attended to women during childbirth, particularly in the ethnic communities in the North and in African-American communities in the South.
E.J. Kirkland at the West Florida Midwives Institute, Florida A&M College, Tallahassee, 1933
Marion County midwives at the Florida State Board of Health Midwife Institute, St. Augustine, 1934
By the 1920s and 1930s, immigration restrictions, resistance by physicians, and a decreasing birthrate all led to the rapid decline of midwives in the North. In the South, however, black midwives continued to practice, at least until state health officials moved to regulate and largely eliminate a profession that they believed was obsolete.
Midwifery demonstration, ca. 1944
Midwife feeling contraction, ca. 1944
In 1931, the Florida legislature passed a law for “the control and licensing of midwifery for the protection of mothers at childbirth and authorizing the State Board of Health to make regulations thereto.” The law required that midwives in Florida be licensed and that they be at least 21, be able to read the Manual for Midwives and be able to fill out birth certificates, “[b]e clean and constantly show evidence in behavior and in home of habits of cleanliness,” possess a diploma from a school for midwives, and have attended, under supervision of a physician, at least fifteen cases of labor.
Midwife washing her hands, ca. 1944
Male midwife with his wife, ca. 1944
Midwife with a newborn infant, ca. 1944
May is National Barbecue Month. Some etymologists believe the word barbecue comes from the Timucuan Indian word “baribicu” meaning “sacred fire.”
“Mode of Drying Fish, Wild Animals, and other Provisions,” from an engraving by Theodor de Bry
There is no doubt that barbecue and barbecuing is sacred to many Floridians today and was certainly enjoyed by the Timucuans of yesterday. From the meat lover to the vegan, Florida’s beautiful spring weather demands that we come together for a barbecue!
Barbecue at the Koreshan Unity, Estero, ca. 1945
Barbeque at the annual cattle round-up, Big Cypress Reservation, 1949
Barbecuing ribs at the Mathews Bridge barbecue, Jacksonville, 1953
Barbecuing at the boat-a-cade, Kissimmee, 1955
Barbecued corn on the cob, Tallahassee, 1961
Family picnic at Lake Talquin, Leon County, 1963
Tallahassee Fire Department Lt. Tommy E. Roberts grilling with his daughters, Tallahassee, 1968
Barbecuing at the Florida Folk Festival, White Springs, 1983
Rosalie Pitts (L) and Rovenia Certain barbecuing at the Zora Neale Hurston Festival, Eatonville, 1991
