If you’re looking for iconic images of Florida, the Commerce Collection is the place to start. The collection is especially rich in classic images from the ’40s and ’50s.
The collection contains approximately 30,000 images of cities, industries, tourist attractions, rivers and leisure activities taken by the Department of Commerce’s Division of Tourism, and its predecessors, from the 1940s to 1996.
You’ll see more images from the Commerce Collection in upcoming posts. See if you can recognize the style. If you think you spot one, you can check your guess by looking for the series title in the catalog record.
Images:
Really cool set of photos. How are they all accumulated? Is it a family run site or can anyone submit?
There are more than 40 individual collections representing donations made by photographers or government agencies to the State Archives of Florida that make up the Florida Photographic Collection as a whole.
The Commerce Collection contains images taken by the Florida Department of Commerce’s Division of Tourism.
The General Collection is comprised of photographs provided to the State Archives by hundreds of individual donors. The collection reflects the homes, families, work, pastimes, and the social, cultural, and natural environments of Florida from the mid-1800s to the present.
These do a great job of showing not only the culture of America at time, but specifically the state of Florida.
Such cool collections of photos of Florida and it’s history. It really shows Florida’s lifestyle throughout the years.
Wow that picture with the oranges is so good. It reminds me of my own orange tree back home.