American Studies Commons^™

Selling Education In The Shape Of A Shuttle, Margaret A. Weitekamp

Florida Historical Quarterly

At some point in the early- to mid-1980s, probably in 1983 or 1984 when he was about ten or eleven years old, my younger brother, Raymond, wrote a letter to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), volunteering to be the first child in space. He wanted to fly as a passenger on NASA's Space Transportation System, a vehicle known better as the Space Shuttle. In response, he received a large envelope from NASA stuffed with fact sheets and brochures as well as posters and stickers that soon decorated his bedroom and filled a scrapbook. Although Ray's desire to volunteer …

The Gendered Anniversary: The Story Of America's Women Astronauts, Amy Foster

Florida Historical Quarterly

As this special issue of the Florida Historical Quarterly has generously acknowledged, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. As important as that anniversary is to the people of Florida, 2008 marks an equally significant anniversary of the space age. June 18, 2008, was the 25" anniversary of the launch of STS-7, Challenger's second flight, and the first flight of Dr. Sally K. Ride. As many Americans will recognize the name, Sally Ride was the first American woman to fly in space.

Heroes In A Vacuum: The Apollo Astronaut As Cultural Icon, Roger D. Launius

Florida Historical Quarterly

No one could have predicted the public fascination with astronauts from the first unveiling of the Mercury Seven in 1959 through Project Apollo until the present. The astronaut as celebrity and what that has meant in American life never dawned on anyone beforehand. To the surprise and ultimately consternation of some NASA leaders, they immediately became national heroes and the leading symbols of the fledgling space program.1 Even so, both NASA and the press contrived to present the astronauts as embodiments of the leading virtues of American culture and this has continued from the 1950s to the new millennium. Both …

Nasa In Florida: A Journalist's View, Pat Duggins

Florida Historical Quarterly

Apollo and Walt Disney. Those were two of the names making newspaper headlines when my family and I arrived in Florida in 1971. My father was an Air Force Chief Master Sergeant, and his last tour of duty would be at Patrick Air Force Base in Brevard County. The primary rocket launch site for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA), and Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom theme park made indelible impacts on Central Florida. It is also interesting to note how both projects almost by-passed Florida in favor of other locations.

Nasa's 50th Anniversary, Bill Nelson

Florida Historical Quarterly

It was Ronald Reagan who, in his 1986 Challenger address to a mourning nation, noted that we are accustomed to wonders in this country. He rightly observed: "It's hard to dazzle us." But America's space program has been doing just that - and, for 50 years now; even in times of loss, even in times of tragedy.

Title Page, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Title page for Volume 87, Number 2. Includes the Table of Contents

End Notes, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

In Memorium; Florida Southern College's Center for Florida History Presents Florida Lecture Series (2008-2009); Guidelines for Submission to the Florida Historical Quarterly

Florida Classroom: Designing History: An Interactive Exploration Of The 1930s Florida Ship Canal, Chris Beckmann

Florida Historical Quarterly

Typically the study of Florida history in the state's schools begins and ends in the fourth grade. Students learn that St. Augustine predates Jamestown, the Seminole Wars were the deadliest and costliest Indian conflicts in American history, Olustee was the only major Civil War battle fought on Florida soil, and 1920's Miami was the center of the first Florida land boom. Unfortunately most high school curricula do not build upon that base and place little emphasis upon the important place of Florida history within the larger national historical narrative. Discussions of race often ignore Rosewood and the significance of Harry …

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Lipscomb, ed. The Letters of Pierce Butler, 1790-1794: Nation Building and Enterprise in the New American Republic. by Rusty Bouseman; Buker. The Metal Life Car: The Inventor, the Impostor, and the Business of Lifesaving. by John Missall; Winsboro. Florida's Civil War: Explorations into Conflict, Interpretations and Memory. by Daniel R. Lewis; Snay. Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites: Race and Nationality in the Era of Reconstruction. by David T. Gleeson; Crawford, Jr. Florida Big Dig: The Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway from Jacksonville to Miami, 1881-1935. by Steven Noll; Warren. If It Takes All Summer: Martin Luther King, the KKK and States' Rights …

Doing The Job: The 1964 Desgregation Of The Florida Army National Guard, Thomas P. Honsa

Florida Historical Quarterly

The American civil rights movement usually brings to mind cities such as Montgomery, Birmingham, Memphis and Washington, D.C. In Florida, however, one of the most significant events of the civil rights era occurred without fanfare in the small, west coast town of Palmetto. It was here in 1964 that the color barrier was broken in one of the state's largest whites-only organizations, The Florida Army National Guard. For the first time in post-colonial history, African-Americans were enlisted into the state's military. Prior to American control, African Americans did play a military role in Florida. State guard officials claim that the …

The Pioneer African American Jurist Who Almost Became A Bishop: Florida's Judge James Dean 1858-1914, Canter Brown, Jr.

Florida Historical Quarterly

For a brief time the life and legacy of pioneering African American and Republican jurist James Dean returned to focus for Floridians in 2002 when Governor Jeb Bush posthumously reinstated the judge to the bench one hundred thirteen years after Governor Francis P. Fleming had removed him from his Monroe County office. Dean's reputation for integrity and probity found itself refurbished, although published accounts provided only sparse details to shed light on the years prior to Dean's election, on his legal or African Methodist Episcopal (AME) ministerial careers after the controversy, and, for that matter, on the circumstances of the …

The Cross-Florida Canal And The Politics Of Interest-Group Democracy Caherine Prescott Lecture, 2008, Wayne Flynt

Florida Historical Quarterly

Polluted water. Hurricanes. Shipwrecks. Drowning sailors. Land developers. Cheap transportation. U.S. presidents willing to invest federal funds in order to court Florida voters. Presidential advisors who attempt to clear the minefields of conflicting local interests in order to implement presidential policy. Public expectation that powerful congressional leaders will bring home the bacon. The ever escalating tension between economic developers/civic boosters on one hand and environmentalists on the other. Typical Florida boondoggles and screwups. If the cast of characters and issues sounds familiar, it is because few patterns of human conduct are entirely new, nor are our current debates entirely foreign …

Title Page, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Title page for Volume 87, Number 1. Includes the Table of Contents

Rebranding The Native: Selling The ‘Ideal’ Indigenous Worker At The Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879-1918, Luke Prior

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Luke Prior ’22
Major: History/Secondary Education
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Alexander Orquiza, History and Classics

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School sought to recreate the image of the Native American from the savage brute of the past and the lazy free-loader who lived off the government ration to an ‘ideal’ worker who was a productive member of the American economy. In doing so, the school stripped students of their cultures and replaced them with American ideals. A very small minority of those at Carlisle used what they learned to fight against the assimilationist mission of the school.

The Imagined Histories And Futures Of The Past: Wwi And The Cultural Imagination, Kelly Aliano

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

In this paper, I look at various modes of imagining the futures incarnated by the First World War, beginning with artists and writers, like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich Maria Remarque, who experienced and depicted the war from a firsthand point of view. From here, I expand that framework to include J.R.R. Tolkien, whose masterpiece Lord of the Rings may owe no small debt to his wartime experiences. I consider the Doctor Who episodes, “Human Nature” and “Family of Blood,” as contemporary attempts to reinsert WWI into the cultural consciousness. Finally, I look at the two versions of War Horse …

An Unread Colonial Diary, Brigid Mcevoy

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Brigid McEvoy ’23
Majors: History and Spanish
Minors: Business and Innovation and Latin American Studies
Mentor: Dr. Adrian Weimer, History and Classics

Through funding from a Veritas Research Grant, I deciphered the Shelton shorthand writing of the second volume of Michael Wigglesworth's diary, digitized through the New England Hidden Histories project. Wigglesworth was a famous poet and preacher in early New England. One of the chief purposes of deciphering this second volume was to create a more nuanced perspective on Wigglesworth's life and artistic career.

This diary, written from March 1658 through November 1687, includes both longhand and shorthand writing. …

End Notes, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

The History Program at Florida Gulf Coast University Announces its New M.A. Degree; West Nassau Historical Society Begins Plans for 3rd Annual Railroad Days Festival; Tequesta: The Journal of the Historical Association of Southern Florida, Volume LSVII (2007); Guidelines for Submissions to the Florida Historical Quarterly

Patriotism Derailed: John Milton, David Yulee, And The Florida Railroad In 1863, Sean Patrick Adams

Florida Historical Quarterly

The summer of 1863 was a portentous time for the Confederate States of America. In May, Union General Ulysses S. Grant bottled up the last remaining Confederate redoubt along the Mississippi at Vicksburg. That same month saw the stunning victory at Chancellorsville for the Army of Northern Virginia, although tempered by the death of charismatic general Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. By June, the Confederacy gambled that the Army of Northern Virginia's invasion of Pennsylvania would provoke a climactic battle that could secure victory and independence. Meanwhile, in the relatively calm surroundings of the Florida theatre, another kind of storm was brewing …

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Matthews. Caribbean Slave Revolts and the British Abolitionist Movement by Ryan D. Groves; Mulroy. The Seminole Freedmen, A History by Daniel S. Murphree; Latimer. 1812 War with America by James Cusick; Cimbala and Shaw, editors. Making A New South: Race, Leadership, and Community after the Civil War by Robert A. Taylor; Sheehan-Dean. Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia by John Sacher; Savitt. Race and Medicine in Nineteenth-and Early-Twentieth Century America by John David Smith; Ayala and Bernabe. Puerto Rico in the American Century: A History Since 1898 by Guadalupe Garcia; Spencer. A History of Gambling in …

In The Aftermath Of The Battle Of Olustee: A Beecher's Surprise Visit To Florida, Sarah Whitmer Foster

Florida Historical Quarterly

Isabella Beecher Hooker spent March 12-14, 1864, visiting senior army officers in Jacksonville. The timing was auspicious, given that her visit came just weeks after the only significant Civil War battle in Florida. The Federal defeat at Olustee had occurred on February 20. Moreover, she had access to regimental and brigade commanders through her brother, James C. Beecher, and her Hartford friend and neighbor, Joseph R. Hawley.1 At the end of her visit Isabella wrote to her husband offering observations about the battle and the Federal officer who led Northern troops in this engagement. The source of her information about …

"If It Was Not For You I Would Be Willing To Die:" The Civil War Correspondence Of Michael And Sallie Raysor, Aaron Sheehan-Dean

Florida Historical Quarterly

Like many Floridians before the Civil War, Michael O. Raysor was not a native.2 Born in Colleton District, South Carolina in 1837, he moved to Florida in 1858 at the age of 21. Raysor settled into life in Jefferson County, Florida, relying on the large extended family that moved to the area as well.3 In June 1861, Raysor enlisted in the Jefferson Rifles (Company H) of the 3rd Florida Regiment. Raysor's military service encompassed many experiences common to Confederates. He accompanied Braxton Bragg in his invasion of Kentucky, where he was captured at the battle of Perryville. After being exchanged, …

Workers Of The Sunshine State Unite!: The Florida Socialist Party During The Progressive Era, 1900-1920, R. Steven Griffin

Florida Historical Quarterly

Florida, whether under Democratic or Republican political control, has always appeared to most outside observers as a haven for political conservatism. Outward appearances, however, often prove to be quite deceptive. Florida politics during the Progressive Era may be such a case. In 1912, the Socialist presidential candidate, Eugene Debs, garnered more votes in Florida than Theodore Roosevelt or William Howard Taft, and Florida was the only state of the former Confederacy where this minor party finished as high as second place in the total vote. A canvass of Progressive Era voting results reveals the steady growth of Socialist electoral strength …

The Nut With A A Huey Long Outlook Versus The Goblins Of Fear And Distortion: Reubin Askew And The Campaign To Establish The Florida Corporate Profits Tax, Gordon E. Harvey

Florida Historical Quarterly

At the dawning of the 1970s, the South stood on the verge of a remarkable period of economic and political growth that earned the region the nickname, "Sunbelt South." Whether named for the constant dosage of sunshine the region received as compared with the "snowbelt" of the Midwest and New England, or for the optimism exuded by a region that had hopefully put the tumultuous 1960s behind it, the South stood on the precipice of a new, more progressive future. In the midst of a transformation from their solidly segregationist past to that of a new optimistic, hopeful South reminiscent …

Title Page, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Title page for Volume 86, Number 3. Includes the Table of Contents

Leaning On The Everlasting Arms: Virgil Darnell Hawkins's Early Life And Entry Into The Civil Rights Struggle, Larry O. Rivers

Florida Historical Quarterly

By 1987, Florida civil rights hero Virgil Hawkins's earthly journey neared its end. At 80 years of age, the sunset of his life had given him many signs that relief and rest lay just on the horizon: grayer hair, slower reflexes, sharper aches, and ailing health. But still, even in these waning years, peace eluded him. The painful, ongoing irony and contradiction in his life appeared as clear as the black-haired, white female newspaper reporter sitting in his living room, carefully scratching out notes as he shared a story that he had repeated so many times.1

End Notes, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Call for Papers, Annual Meeting, Florida Historical Society, May 24-26, 2008; Herman and Celia Chapin Award; Committee Appointments for the 2008 Annual Meeting Florida Historical Society; Call for Papers, Florida Conference of Historians 47th Annual Meeting February 28-March 1, 2008; Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Stamp; Orange County Regional History Center; Wolfsonian-FIU Fellowship Program; Guidelines for Submissions to the Florida Historical Quarterly

Why Was Antebellum Florida Murderous? A Quantitative Analysis Of Homicide In Florida, 1821-1861, James M. Denham

Florida Historical Quarterly

Before the Civil War, Florida was one of the most murderous places in the United States. Its homicide rate was rivaled only by Texas and California.1 When it came to murders of or by blacks, Florida was typical for a slave state. But its white citizens killed each other at an extraordinary rate-usually three or four times the rate in most other slave states and eight to ten times the prevailing rate during the Second Seminole War, 1835-42, and the secession crisis, 1858-61.

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Murphree, Constructing Floridians: Natives and Europeans in the Colonial Flordas, 1513-1783 by J. Michael Francis; Perez, Jr., To Die in Cuba: Suicide and Society by Christina D. Abreu; Hiller, Highway A1A: Florida at the Edge by Keith A. Sculle; Noll and Blumhofer, editors, Sing Them Ouer Again To Me: Hymns and Hymnbooks in America by Daniel S. Pierce; Koszulinski, director, Cracker Crazy: Invisible Histories of the Sunshine State by Robert Cassanello; Braddock, Down in Orburndale: A Songwriter's Youth in Old Florida by Kristine M. McCusker; Butler, Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World by Edward …

Camp Roosevelt: A Case Study Of The Nya In Florida, Dave Nelson

Florida Historical Quarterly

In April 1940, Life magazine's cover story on "Government and Youth" updated an article the magazine had published on the youth problem in 1936. The cover featured a photograph of Mabel Sealey, an enrollee at Camp Roosevelt, a National Youth Administration (NYA) resident project in Ocala, Florida. The accompanying article, presented the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as boys' work relief, while the NYA provided relief for girls.1 In the gendered language of the narrative and the photographic images, the masculine CCC project accomplished important work such as fire fighting and tree planting, while teaching its enrollees military discipline and job …

The Cuban Convention And Its Role In The Cuban Revolutionary Party, Consuelo E. Stebbins

Florida Historical Quarterly

In June 1892, Luis Lagomasino, an agent of a secret organization known only to its members as the Cuban Convention was summoned to Key West to provide an update on the preparations underway in Cuba for the revolution. Lagomasino, the Convention's agent in the eastern province of Las Villas, arrived in Key West on June 22, 1892, where he was affectionately received by Jose Dolores (J. D.) Poyo and General Serafin Sanchez, who introduced him to the wealthy industrialist, Eduardo H. Gato, and the veteran insurgent leader, Fernando Figueredo Soccards. On the night of June 24, 1892, Lagomasino met with …