What were Civil Wars solders doing in Pensacola, Florida? What do you do when primary source documents about the same event tell different stories?
Students use Civil War diaries, an essay from Zora Neale Hurston, and advertisements from World War II to examine the raw materials of Florida history.
This unit introduces major themes, events, and individuals in Seminole history using primary sources from the collections of the State Library and Archives of Florida.
Read letters, diaries ("I forgot to mention that President Lincoln and some of his cabinet were assassinated on Saturday night.") and official records.
Florida, the closest state to the Caribbean and home to a large Cuban immigrant population, became the setting for much of the action in Cuba's fight for independence from Spain.
Learn about one of Florida’s most interesting and influential pioneering communities: the Koreshan Unity.
Mary McLeod Bethune founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial School for Negro Girls which is now Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona, Florida. Read the transcript of an interview for an unfinished biography.
In the decades after the Civil War, cigar making became one of the most important industries in the southeastern United States.
Trains helped to establish new towns and cities in Florida, and served the lumber, phosphate, tourist, manufacturing and agricultural industries.
Zora Neale Hurston was already a published writer when she began working for the Florida division of the Work Projects Administration (WPA). In August of 1939, Hurston went on a recording expedition to the turpentine camps in Cross City, Florida.
View Neale Hurston, the WPA in Florida, and the Cross City Turpentine Camp »
Letters, telegrams, advertisements and brochures depicting life during World War II.
These images document civil rights protests to integrate buses, stores, theaters, and beaches.
This unit provides insight into the experience of Cuban refugees in Florida using photographs, government documents, letters, videos and interviews.
This unit provides an introduction to Florida’s involvement in the Space Age through photographs, lesson plans, and exercises.
Clark learned to make white oak baskets from her parents. Originally these sturdy baskets were used to hold cotton and carry vegetables. The tradition of white oak basket making has been carried on by Lucreaty Clark's grandson, Alphonso Jennings.
Longtime net maker and Fernandina resident Billy Burbank III discusses the history and practices of the net making trade.
Seminole doll maker Mary B. Billie and her daughter, Claudia C. John, discuss the history and practices of Seminole doll making.
Documents and audio recordings in this unit are primarily drawn from The Sacred Harp Sing, a slide and tape show created by the Florida Folklife Program in 1978, and field recordings by Alton Morris in 1949 in Gainesville, Florida.
