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).

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)

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

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

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

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

“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

Shepard entering Freedom 7

Shepard was the second person to travel into space. Twenty-three days prior to Shepard’s flight, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first-ever human in space. The space race was on…

Launch of Freedom 7 from Cape Canaveral