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History

University of Central Florida

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Florida history

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The Best And Worst Of All That God And Man Can Do": Paternalistic Perceptions On The Intellectually Disabled At Florida's Sunland Institutions., Bethany Dickens Jan 2014

The Best And Worst Of All That God And Man Can Do": Paternalistic Perceptions On The Intellectually Disabled At Florida's Sunland Institutions., Bethany Dickens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Historians have studied mental institutions in the mid-20th century; however, few have discussed them within the context of the period's paternalistic social movements and perceptions. Florida's Sunland program provides a lens for studying the parental role the institutions and general public took toward the intellectually disabled. Specifically, administrators saw residents of the Sunland Training Centers and Hospitals as perpetual children, trapped in an "eternal childhood." The institution was presented as a family unit, abiding by 1950s ideals of the companionate household. When the Sunlands proved generally unsuccessful, Florida's communities began to supplement their efforts. The social movements of the 1960s …


Set A Light In A Dark Place: Teachers Of Freedmen In Florida, 1863-18, Laura Wakefield Jan 2004

Set A Light In A Dark Place: Teachers Of Freedmen In Florida, 1863-18, Laura Wakefield

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the Civil War closed and Reconstruction began, a small army of teachers arrived in Florida. Under the auspices of northern aid societies, churches, and educational associations, they proposed to educate the newly emancipated slaves, believing that education would prepare African Americans for citizenship. Teachers found Florida's freedmen determined to acquire literacy by whatever means they could, but they faced a white populace resistant to outsiders. Reformers, politicians, literate blacks, and Yankee businessmen intent on socially, politically, and economically transforming Florida joined educators in reconstructing Florida. Florida's educational system transformed during Reconstruction, and an examination of the reciprocity between Reconstruction-era …