Florida Resources

This authoritative and wide-ranging book presents for the first time the history of Art in Florida from the first European artist, Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, who arrived in 1564, until the end of the Second World War, when Art in Florida exploded into the modern forms and styles. Collected here are 160 illustrations of Florida art, 100 in color. The illustrated paintings were gathered from public and private collections all over the country, many reproduced here for the first time.

From the very first prickly pears harvested by Paleo-Indians more than twelve thousand years ago to the Seminole tribe's staple dish of sofkee, Florida's culinary history is as diverse as its geography. Italian, French, Creole, Spanish, Cuban, Greek, Mexican, Minorcan and Caribbean influences season southern, soul and Cracker foods to make up Florida's eclectic flavors. Learn how Florida orange juice changed the look of the American breakfast table and discover the state's festival-worthy swamp cabbage. Through syllabubs, perloos, frog legs and Tupelo honey, author Joy Sheffield Harris serves up a delectable helping of five hundred years of Florida cuisine--all with a side of key lime pie, of course.

An exploration of the architectural and archaeological sites in Florida that explore the human spirit.

A collection of essays and stories by Jeff Klinkenberg on the "True Florida," the things that make Florida Florida.

While on a cruise to Havana in 1911, Beater heard part of the Gasparilla story. That piqued an interest that persisted for fifty years, as he pored over old books and records and talked endlessly to early settlers to hear more hand-me-down yarns. This book recounts some of his best tall tales.

Florida has been the location and subject of hundreds of feature films, from Cocoanuts (1929) to Monster (2004). Portraying the state and its people from the silent era to the present, these films have explored the multitude of Florida images and clichés that have captured the public's imagination--a nature lover's paradise, a wildlife refuge, a tourist destination, home to the "cracker," and a haven for the retired, the rich, the immigrant, and the criminal. Sunshine in the Dark is the first complete study of how the movie industry has immortalized Florida's extraordinary scenery, characters, and history on celluloid. Historians Fernández and Ingalls have identified more than 300 films about Florida--many of them shot on location in the state--to analyze how filmmakers from the Marx Brothers and John Huston to Oliver Stone and Francis Ford Coppola have portrayed the state and its people.

In 1885, America's greatest inventor, the "wizard" of electricity and Yankee industrialization, established a second home in Florida. Unlike the many wealthy turn-of-the century vacationers who descended on Florida's tourist cities to unwind and escape, Thomas Edison chose a "cow town" in the Florida outback. In the mid-1880s, he built a modest house and a laboratory under the palm trees of Fort Myers, and this "green laboratory" became a quiet wellspring of invention for the next forty years. In this first book devoted to Edison's life and work in Fort Myers, Thulesius reveals Edison the nature lover and medicine man. He traces Edison's first trips to Florida for simple health reasons and then follows Edison's expanding interest in the natural world, his camping trips with John Burroughs, his opposition to the exotic bird trade for the millinery business, his fascination with sponges, and his late experiments with hybridization of rubber and goldenrod. Thulesius also explores the relationship with Fort Myers neighbor Henry Ford, the visits from Henry Firestone, and the joint founding of the Edison Botanic Research Company of Ft. Myers. Thulesius's background affords him insight into the medical history of the Edison family, and he traces Edison's lifelong interest in medical issues, his development of "polyform," experiments with X-rays, and cures for gout and yellow fever. What emerges is a new portrait of a brilliant, industrious personality whose imagination and insight were inspired by the natural world he discovered in Florida.

For sports buffs of all ages, here's a selection of books sure to generate interest in the Florida version of daring adventure sports, kayaking, surfing, cycling, and baseball.This history of Florida baseball includes major leagues, spring training, minor leagues, college and high school ball, the Negro leagues, women's teams, baseball camps, even movies and novels about baseball. -- The Florida State League attracted more than 1,000,000 fans in 1994 -- Twenty-two of the 28 major league teams hold spring training in Florida -- The first women's baseball teams were called the Bloomer Girls.

Neither Florida nor Cuba; neither American nor Caribbean "Key West is an island steeped in lore, from Hemingway to Fantasy Fest, but behind the façade of Margaritaville lie buried tensions and conflicts in need of examination. Kerstein provides a much-needed dose of reality in the form of a masterfully researched study of the island's tourism industry, from the shadowy power brokers who pull the strings to the underpaid workers who serve the drinks. From seedy bars to trendy discos, Kerstein has managed to capture the improbable mixture of this strange island, while offering a cautionary tale of tourism run amok."--Robert Lee Irby, author of 7,000 Clams

In The WPA Guides: Mapping America Christine Bold closely examines this publicized view of the guides and reveals its flaws. Her research in archival materials reveals the negotiations and conflicts between the central editors in Washington and the local people in the states. Race, region, and gender are taken as important categories within which difference and conflict appear. She looks at the guidebook for each of five distinctively different locations -- Idaho, New York City, North Carolina, Missouri, and U.S. One and the Oregon Trail--to assess the editorial plotting of such issues as gender, race, ethnicity, and class. As regionalists jostled with federal officialdom, the faultlines of the project gaped open. Spotlighting the controversies between federal and state bureaucracies, Bold concludes that the image of America that the WPA fostered is closer to fabrication than to actuality.