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Lieutenant Levin M. Powell, U.S.N., Pioneer Of Riverine Warfare, George E. Buker

Florida Historical Quarterly

Geographically Vietnam is half a world away from Florida. Historically over a century and a quarter separates the present conflict in Southeast Asia from the Second Seminole War. In both of these engagements the United States Navy has conducted similar operations of maintaining combat coastal patrols against guerrilla operations. Today the amphibious river assault forces of the navy wend their passage among the tortuous waterways of the Mekong delta in riverine warfare. l The lineage of such naval operations go back to the Second Seminole War of 1835-1842 in Florida. The conflict erupted in December 1835, when the Indians took …

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Reviews of Sanborn, Robert E. Lee, Volume I, A Portrait: 1807-1861; Robert E. Lee, Volume II, The Complete Man, 1861-1870, by William Warren Rogers; Morrison, W. J. Cash, Southern Prophet, by Joe M. Richardson; Tindall, The Emergence of the New South, 1913-1945, by Herbert J. Doherty, Jr.; Bullock, A History of Negro Education in the South: From 1619 to the Present, by Leedell W. Neyland; Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812, by Michael G. Kammen; Kellogg, NAACP: A History of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Vol. I: 1909-1920, by David Chalmers; Newby, …

Little Steel’S Labor War In Youngstown, Ben J. St. Angelo

Madison Historical Review

During the 1930s, in response to growing labor discontent, the United States Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Championed by President Franklin Roosevelt’s as an equalizing measure in the American workplace, the NLRA received vigorous opposition from powerful leaders in multiple industries. This article examines an outbreak of violence between workers and agents of management at Republic Steel in Youngstown, Ohio during the spring and summer of 1937 when workers attempted to organize—emboldened by new rights granted to them in the NLRA. It demonstrates the life and death consequences that marred labor relations in the United States. Disputes …

Constructing The Panama Canal: A Brief History, Ian E. Phillips

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

Seeking to commemorate the construction of the Panama Canal, an engineering marvel widely considered a contender for the eighth wonder of the world, this article attempts to retell the story of the Canal's construction by synthesizing a narrative centered on the Canal under French and American leadership, worker segregation, and labor conditions at the Isthmus.

Historical News, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Notice of the annual meeting; manuscript acquisitions; activities and events

Cross-Florida Barge Canal, 1927-1968, J. Richard Sewell

Florida Historical Quarterly

The early and later history of the Cross-Florida Barge Canal is said to be divided by the enactment of the River and Harbor Act, signed into law January 21, 1927 by President Calvin Coolidge. This act authorized the secretary of war to make a preliminary examination and survey of the “Waterway from Cumberland Sound, Georgia and Florida, to the Mississippi River,” and it had had the full support of President Harding, Coolidge’s predecessor, who declared himself in favor of the broadest development of the country’s inland waterways. Henry Holland Buckman, who has been called the “father confessor” of the present …

Key West And The New Deal, 1934-1936, Durward Long

Florida Historical Quarterly

Historians often point out that the depression which began for the rest of the United States in 1929, started in Florida much earlier. The final collapse of the real estate boom in Florida in 1926, was followed by serious fiscal difficulties for units of government-local and state-as well as for private citizens. Even nature seemed to conspire against the economic well-being of the state. The devastating hurricanes of 1926 and 1928 were followed by the invasion of the Mediterranean fruit fly in 1929, to add to the deepening financial and economic distress which many Florida communities were suffering in the …

Oldsmar For Health, Wealth, Happiness, Glenn A. Niemeyer

Florida Historical Quarterly

The Florida real estate boom of the mid-1920s brought unparalleled publicity to Florida. From Jacksonville to Key West city streets were clogged with cars and trucks bearing northern license plates. Swamps were drained and lots on “Venetian canals” were offered for public sale at fantastic prices. Elaborate advertising campaigns, boasting such names as William Jennings Bryan, attempted to lure the Northerner away from snow and ice and into the “Sunshine State.” According to Frederick Lewis Allen, it was “the most delirious fever of real-estate speculation which had attacked the United States in ninety years.”

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Reviews of Bigelow, Frontier Eden: The Literary Career of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, by Frank G. Slaughter; Rush, The Battle of Pensacola, March 9 to May 8, 1781: Spain’s Final Triumph Over Great Britain in the Gulf of Mexico, by Jane de Grummond; Martin, Eternal Spring: Man’s 10,000 Years of History at Florida's Silver Springs, by Donald W. Curl; Massola, The Wonderful Life of Angelo Massari; An Autobiography, by O. Z. Tyler; Gibson, Spain in America, by Donald Worcester; McDermott, The French in the Mississippi Valley, by Robert L. Gold; De Vorsey, The Indian Boundary in the Southern Colonies, 1763- 1775, …

Federal Expedition Against Saint Marks Ends At Natural Bridge, Edwin C. Bearss

Florida Historical Quarterly

In the last year of the Civil War, the Union forces took advantage of their seapower to carry the conflict to sections of Florida that had heretofore escaped the ravages of war. Operating from bases which they had seized along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the state, Union columns would strike deep into the interior and fall back before the Confederates could rally a force strong enough to intervene. Raiding parties were likewise put ashore from transports. If they ran into serious opposition, the raiders would fall back to the beach, where they would be covered by the great …

Suwannee River Steamboating, E. A. Mueller

Florida Historical Quarterly

Stephen Collins Foster's famous song, “Way Down Upon the Suwannee River,” has probably done more than anything else to elevate this relatively minor Florida river to a position of fame that it otherwise would not have achieved. Now the official state song of Florida, it was written in 1851 while Foster was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had originally decided to title it, “Way Down Upon The Pee Dee River,” but fortunately he changed his mind, and, as the story goes, examined a map and discovered the name of the little-known Florida river. Foster had certainly not seen the Suwannee when …

Florida's Golden Age Of Racing, Alice Strickland

Florida Historical Quarterly

The honor of being “the first man to sit behind the controls of a self-propelled road vehicle,” goes to a French army engineer, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot, who in the 1760s designed a monstrous steam carriage to transport artillery. Cugnot’s vehicle was so massive and unwieldy that it knocked over the wall of a courtyard while being tested, and on another occasion turned over on the streets of Paris. Its top speed was from two to six miles per hour.

Billy Bowlegs (Holata Micco) In The Seminole Wars (Part I), Kenneth W. Porter

Florida Historical Quarterly

If a group of informed Americans were asked to name a Seminole chief, it is likely that most of them would reply “Osceola.” If asked to recall a second Florida Indian, at least a majority of those responding would name “Billy Bowlegs.” The second choice would be more accurate, for Osceola was a Seminole only by adoption - being by birth a Red Stick Creek from Georgia or Alabama who came to Florida at about the age of ten. He was not a chief by hereditary right, whereas Billy Bowlegs, to use his common white-man’s nickname, was what an army …

Early History Of The Cross-Florida Barge Canal, Charles E. Bennett

Florida Historical Quarterly

The dream of constructing an all-water route across the peninsula of Florida to carry freight and passengers has often been discussed and debated in the past history of this state. Many plans were projected and discarded, surveys were made, and work even began on a canal during the 1930s. However, only now is the Cross-Florida Barge Canal actually underway with completion scheduled for sometime after 1970.

Henry Bradley Plant And Florida, Dudley S. Johnson

Florida Historical Quarterly

Florida was a fertile field for developers during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Lumbermen were at work in the northern part of the state; the citrus industry was in its infancy; phosphate mining was just beginning; and northern vacationers and some invalids were discovering the restorative powers of Florida’s climate. Railroads were needed to serve and to further develop these diverse interests. Many men dreamed of building a network of rails in the state, and some began the project. Most failed, although a few succeeded. Henry Bradley Plant was one of the more successful. He constructed railroads, hotels, …

Bishop Michael J. Curley And Anti-Catholic Nativism In Florida, David P. Page

Florida Historical Quarterly

The four-hundred year history of the Catholic Church in Florida, beginning with the Spanish settlements of the sixteenth century, and continuing through successive English, Spanish, and United States occupations of the peninsula, has not been an entirely peaceful passage. It has been marked by periodic conflicts between Indians and missionaries, missionaries and Spanish officials, missionaries and English raiders, parish priests and governors, parishioners and United States officials, and, finally, during the first half of the nineteenth century, between parish trustees and pastors. In the years between the Civil War and World War I, the church in Florida enjoyed a consoling …

Historical Beginnings Of Ybor City And Modern Tampa, Durward Long

Florida Historical Quarterly

The story of the revitalization of Tampa, Florida at the end of the nineteenth century is illustrative of many developments accompanying the expansion of cities in that era. Part of the story concerns the attempt to build Ybor City, separate from but adjacent to Tampa, based on immigrant capital and immigrant labor. While Ybor City failed to retain its separateness from Tampa, its cigars - “Hav-A-Tampa, ” “Tampa Nuggets,” “Tampa Straights,” and many others - widely advertised this Florida city. Tampa became famous for cigars even though production began in Ybor City in 1886, and her reputation continues. As late …

This Was Fort Dade, Frank Laumer

Florida Historical Quarterly

Fort Dade was born on the twenty-third of December 1836. The announcement read: “A fort will be erected. . . on the Big Withlacoochee, at the point where the Fort King road crosses it, which will bear the name of the gallant and lamented Dade.”

Historical News, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Notice of the annual meeting, National Library Week, local historical societies, contributors to this issue

A South Carolina Lawyer Visits St. Augustine - 1837, John Hammond Moore

Florida Historical Quarterly

Just why Henry Summer, a young South Carolina lawyer, journeyed to Florida in the winter of 1837 is not clear. This account, entitled simply “Journal &c. for 1837,” indicates his purpose was to search court records in St. Augustine-perhaps for Judge John Belton O’Neall, a noted jurist with whom he was associated. Born in 1809 of distinguished German stock, Henry was one of six sons. One brother, William (1815-78), became a horticulturist of some note and gave the name Pomaria to the Newberry County community where he lived. Another, Adam (1818-66), was a well-known Columbia printer. As this narrative makes …

The Editor's Corner--Key West In The Summer Of 1864, Millicent Todd Bingham

Florida Historical Quarterly

From 1918 until her death in 1932, my mother, Mabel Loomis Todd, was a prominent resident of Coconut Grove Florida. Her home, “Matsuba,” was a center of cultural life in the community. Recently I have been reading the letters of her mother’s brother, Colonel John Augustus Wilder, written to his family during the Civil War. Stationed at Key West in February 1864, he remained there until August 28, 1865, when he was appointed Judge Advocate General of the Department of Florida and left for Tallahassee, his post until December 9, 1865. He was mustered out of the United States Army …

Ponce De Leon Inlet, Alice Strickland

Florida Historical Quarterly

In its day it has been called the “Killer Inlet” because of its treacherous bar that has ripped out the insides of ships and hurled men to the sandy, shifty bottom to strew their white bones like beads from a broken necklace. From early Spanish times it was named Mosquito Inlet; since 1926, it has been called Ponce de Leon Inlet.

Henry S. Sanford And Labor Problems In The Florida Orange Industry, Richard J. Amundson

Florida Historical Quarterly

Henry Shelton Sandord, direct descendant of Thomas Sanford who had come to Massachusetts in the 1630’s, made many contributions to the economic welfare of the United States and particularly to Florida, his “adopted state.” Sanford’s foresight and his sizable investments promoted the growth and prosperity of the orange culture in central Florida. His adoption of modern equipment and scientific methods of cultivation, including selective cross-breeding of citrus stocks and the use of irrigation, speeded the so-called “orange revolution” which occurred in the post-Civil War period. Progress and change, however, often are opposed, and so it was with Sanford’s efforts to …

Confederate Railroad Construction: The Live Oak To Lawton Connector, Jerrell H. Shofner

Florida Historical Quarterly

One of the Confederacy’s most perplexing problems involved combining the disconnected southern railroads into a system of transportation between the various parts of the South. Lack of equipment and enemy action were major reasons for the failure to solve the problem. The Confederate government also pursued the disastrous policy of relying as much as possible on private initiative to supply its needs.

Aftermath Of Military Reconstruction, 1868-1869, Ralph L. Peek

Florida Historical Quarterly

The military reconstruction of Florida ended on July 4, 1868, with ratification of a new constitution and the election of Harrison Reed as governor, William Gleason as lieutenant governor, and Charles Hamilton as congressman. A state legislature with a large Republican majority in both houses was also elected.

Historical News, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Local and area societies and commissions

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Reviews of Aristocrat in Uniform: General Duncan L. Clinch. By Rembert W. Patrick. (Gainesville: University of Florida Press for the Florida Historical Society, 1963. xi, 226 pp. Preface, illustrations, notes, map, bibliography, index. $5.50.); The History of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. By Leedell W. Neyland and John W. Riley. (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1963. xi, 303 pp. Foreword, preface, illustrations, bibliography, appendix, index. $6.50.); Pirates, Indians, and Spaniards: Father Escobedo's “La Florida.” Edited by James W. Covington. Translated by A. E. Falcones. (St. Petersburg: Great Outdoors Publishing Company, 1963. xvi, 174 pp. Foreword, introduction, footnotes, index, maps. $5.00.); …

The Fort King Road, 1963, William M. Goza

Florida Historical Quarterly

In 1825, the territory of Florida was sparsely settled and little traveled. Fort Brooke, named for its first commander, Colonel George Mercer Brooke, and located where the Hillsborough River meets Old Tampa Bay, was a scant two years old. In that year, Indian Agent Colonel Gad Humphries established an agency near the present city of Ocala, preceding by some two years the occupation of Fort King on a nearby knoll. Realizing the need to connect its outposts by overland routes, Congress appropriated $12,000 to build a road from the northern boundary of the territory to Fort Brooke. The road was …

The Indian River Settlement: 1842-1849, Joseph D. Cushman, Jr.

Florida Historical Quarterly

No section of the Territory of Florida suffered more than the east coast as a result of Indian deprecations during the Seminole War. The flourishing sugar plantations of the Halifax country were reduced to charred ruins, the tiny port of New Smyrna was entirely deserted, and the infant citrus industry suffered a staggering setback just as it was beginning to show signs of prosperity. After seven years of fighting, many Floridians gravely doubted the truth of General William Worth’s pontifical pronouncement that the Seminole conflict would be “officially” terminated on August 12, 1842. The settlers were alarmed at the naivete …

Space-Praxis: Towards A Feminist Politics Of Design, Mary C. Overholt

Masters of Environmental Design Theses

Outside of the academy and professionalized practice, design has long been central to the production of feminist, political projects. Taking what I have termed space-praxis as its central analytic, this project explores a suite of feminist interventions into the built environment—ranging from the late 1960s to present day.

Formulated in response to Michel de Certeau’s theory of spatial practices, space-praxis collapses formerly bifurcated definitions of ‘tactic’/‘strategy’ and ‘theory’/‘practice.’ It gestures towards those unruly, situated undertakings that are embedded in an ever-evolving, liberative politics. In turning outwards, away from the so-called masters of architecture, this thesis orients itself toward everyday practitioners …