The Florida Dream

"The Florida Dream," a new documentary produced by the Florida Humanities Council and WEDU-TV, will air Thursday, October 18, at 9 p.m. on public television stations across the state ( broadcast schedule). This documentary, narrated by Ed Asner and based on Gary Mormino's book Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams, explores Florida's tremendous growth and change after World War II.

Companion to the film is a wonderful website (Florida Humanities Council: Florida Dream website), with audio and video clips, powerpoint presentations, images, and lesson plans organized into 7 categories: civil rights, land & development, people & cultures, politics, retirement & aging, technology, and tourism.

Florida Dream media kit

Plume Hunters in Florida

The hottest fashion accessory in the late nineteenth century was a bird plume hat. Elaborate feather confections adorned women's heads, but as Stuart McIver writes:

"Behind the plumes and feathered hats lay a trail of bloody slaughter, human greed, human ingenuity, production skills, and artistry. The result was a thing of beauty that brought joy to its wearer and her admirers. The feather trade's cast of characters was a large one: in the big city, the fashion designers, millinery workers, salesmen, and retail merchants; in the swamps, marshes, and woods, the traders and plume buyers and, at the bottom of the chain, the plume hunters."

A plume is a large and particularly showy feather. The plumes of Florida's snowy egret, white ibis, and other wading birds during breeding season were particularly sought-after commodities. That so many plume birds could be found in Florida added to the state's mystique -- historian Jack E. Davis calls the birds the "beauty to the alligator's "beast," good and evil in an exotic wilderness.

Life was difficult in south Florida and the Everglades, and it was hard to turn down a chance to make a little money, a little better life for the family. Many men already hunted these birds for dinner (white ibis was also called Chokoloskee chicken, refering to a trading post in the Ten Thousand Islands). What was wrong with killing a few more?

Plume hunters didn't restrict themselves to shooting just one or two birds. They would kill all the adults in a rookery, leaving the young on their own to die. Thousands upon thousands of birds were shot, threatening the continued existence of some species. This carnage, however, gave credence to early conservation efforts in the United States.

In 1901, at the urging of the American Ornithologists' Union, Florida passed a law protecting many species of birds. In 1902, Guy Bradley, a former plume hunter himself, was appointed warden in Monroe County. In Death in the Everglades, Stuart McIver tells Bradley's story, the story of the plume birds, the story of the south Florida frontier. Ultimately, he tells the story of Bradley's death, shot in 1905 by the father of an accused plume hunter. Bradley became a martyr for the cause.

Wildlife contributed to Florida's popular image, so important to those marketing its homes and hotels. Nonetheless, the wildlife, the natural resources, were themselves commodities -- alligator hides, sea shells, orchids, and cypress knees were marketed, along with the plumes. Notes Davis, writing about the late 1800s, "In the end, harvesting novelties of nature threatened those things that gave Florida its original splendor."

Gradually, a combination of legal controls, changing fashions, and diminishing supply lessened the demand for plumes, although the hunting continued well into the twentieth century. Today, Florida's wading birds are threatened by pollution and habitat loss rather than by the hats we wear.

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Death in the Everglades: The Murder of Guy Bradley, America's First Martyr to Environmentalism, by Stuart B. McIver (University Press of Florida, 2003)

"Alligators and Plume Birds; The Despoilation of Florida's Living Aesthetic" by Jack E. Davis, in Paradise Lost? The Environmental History of Florida (University Press of Florida, 2005)

Florida News

"Old Florida ranching family faces New Florida challenges" (The McDaniels' ranch in Hendry county deals with developers and a storm water project, Palm Beach Post, Oct. 8, 2007)

"Pepper Ranch would be part of Collier land preservation program, if owners get their way" (2,500 acres in Immokalee, Naples Daily News, Oct. 8, 2007)

"It's only logical to get history correct" (Tampa rededicates the Eugene Holtsinger Bridge, St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 5, 2007)

"Bridge links us to more bits of history" (Memories of the old Garcia Avenue Bridge, St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 12, 2007)

"The Carolina Connection -- Floridians are buying up homes in North Carolina -- and Florida builders are hot on their heels. But the Sunshine State's brand of development is creating tension in the hills." (Florida Trend, Oct. 1, 2007)

"Mound seen as sacred trust" (Efforts to protect Pinellas Point temple mound, St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 7, 2007)

"Villa Serena labeled historic home" (Former Miami home of William Jennings Bryan, Miami Daily News, Oct. 11, 2007)

"Up against the wall--Old murals adorn a doomed building. Can they be saved?" (Works Progess Administration muralist George Snow Hill, St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 10, 2007)

"1947 Greyhound station for sale" (Streamline Moderne building in Daytona Beach, Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 7, 2007)

"Biltmore course re-opening delayed" (Renovated 1925 Donald Ross golf course to reopen Nov. 1 in Coral Gables, Miami Herald, Oct. 12, 2007)

"Satelitte Beach turns 50" (Florida Today, Oct. 12, 2007)

"Time may be running out on Gov. McCarty's house -- The current owner of Daniel McCarty's home wants to tear 102-year-old house down." (in Fort Pierce, tcpalm.com, Oct. 11, 2007)

Support the Tampa Historical Society

Two events this month to benefit the Tampa Historical Society:

Feast of the Dark at Gaspar's Grotto in Ybor City.
Friday, October 19, 2007, 7:30 - 11:30 pm
Tax deductible $10 cover for costume contest, ghost ship decor, pirates, games, silent auction, live music, food and drink specials.

Graveyard Walk
Oaklawn Cemetery in downtown Tampa
Sunday, October 28, 2007, 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Led by Miss Prudence Fipwhistle (who died in 1899, by the way)
$5 donation requested
For more information, call (813) 831-5214

Funds raised to help with restoration of the Society's headquarters, the Peter O. Knight House.

Heritage Village

Yesterday I took my class on a fieldtrip to Pinellas County's Heritage Village. This park and museum offers 25+ historic structures, exhibits, educational programs and classes, a gift shop, and a nature trail. The oldest structure is a mid-nineteenth-century dogtrot log cabin. Other buildings include cracker houses, barns, a church, a railroad depot, a general store, a bandstand, and a shelter from an old cemetery, all moved here from somewhere else in Pinellas County (except the railroad depot is from Sulphur Springs in Tampa). And as if that weren't enough there's a caboose and fire engine. All this, and a really helpful and enthusiastic group of guides, interpreters, and volunteer docents.

Coming up soon, on October 27, will be the Annual Country Jubilee and Heritage Village 30th Birthday Celebration (9:30 am to 4:30 pm, free admission, shuttle parking). Come enjoy crafts, live music, activities, and special guests in the historic buildings.

Devil's Millhopper

What could be more fun than a hole in the ground?!

This summer, the family visited Devil's Millhopper State Park near Gainesville. I hadn't been there for a decade or more, since I was in grad school at the University of Florida. Devil's Millhopper is a park that features a 120-foot-deep, 500-foot-wide sinkhole. A 236-step wooden staircase winds down to the bottom. (Walking down 236 steps while outside is an odd thing for us flatlanders. Walking up 236 steps is popular with local residents who incorporate the sinkhole into personal fitness routines.) It's a beautiful and peaceful place, with shade trees and trickling spring-fed springs.

Here's how the State Park service explains the name:

"Devil’s Millhopper gets its unique name from its funnel-like shape. During the 1880’s, farmers used to grind grain in gristmills. On the top of the mill was a funnel-shaped container called a 'hopper' that held the grain as it was fed into the grinder. Because fossilized bones and teeth from early life forms have been found at the bottom of the sink, legend has it that the millhopper was used to feed bodies to the devil. Hence, Devil’s Millhopper."

At the park, there is a nature trail, and a small interpretive ceter where you can see artifacts left behind by Native Americans, the Spanish, American explorers, and other who have visited the site over the past 10,000 years.

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Information about Florida sinkholes:

Florida Department of Environmental Protection

University of Florida IFAS

Elizabeth Bishop's Florida

The state with the prettiest name,
the state that floats in brackish water,
held together by mangrave roots
that bear while living oysters in clusters,
and when dead strew white swamps with skeletons,
dotted as if bombarded, with green hummocks
like ancient cannon-balls sprouting grass.


These are the first few lines of Florida, by Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop was a twentieth-century American poet, who lived and worked in Key West in the 1930s and 1940s. She is also the topic of a Florida Humanities Council-sponsored lecture to be offered in Key West in December 2007.

More Florida Blogs

It's always nice to run across some new (to me, at least) Florida blogs such as these:

Civil War Florida

Digital Library Blog

(and one for my sister...)

Gardening in Central Florida

Florida News

"Ormond Firehouse Converting to Office Building" Daytona Beach News-Journal Oct. 1, 2007

"Wright's Stuff" Florida Trend Oct. 1, 2007

"From Bondage to Great Brooksvillian Nominee" Hernando Today Sept. 30, 2007

"Get Ready for Some Fun at the Old Ice House" Punta Gorda Herald Oct. 3, 2007

"New Finds among the Old: Historian is First Full-time Paid Venice Archive Manager" Herald Tribune Oct. 2, 2007

"Orange City Water Museum" DeLand-Deltona Beacon Sept. 28, 2007

"Library Photo Archives One of Putnam’s ‘Little-known Treasures’" Palatka Daily News

"Railroad Shop: The Day a Black Community Died" Miami Herald Sept. 23, 2007

"Florida's Space Coast was Sparked by Sputnik" St. Petersburg Times Sept. 30, 2007

"Landmark Hotel Adds a New Page to its History" Tallahassee Democrat Sept. 30, 2007

"Diversity's Good Business for Longtime Skating Rink" Miami Herald Oct. 4, 2007

"Martha Makes a House" Orlando Sentinel Oct. 7, 2007

"To Them, It's Joyful Noise" St. Petersburg Times Oct. 5, 2007

Florida Flicks

It's the weekend -- time to head over to the local movie rental store.

Key Largo : Bogie and Bacall, Edward G. Robinson -- gangsters, Seminoles, and a war veteran gather at a hotel in the Florida keys as a storm approaches.

Sunshine State: Families and communities in transition as developers make big plans for some Florida towns. Filmed on Amelia Island, and features American Beach. Director: John Sayles.

Cocoon: A group of retirees discover the fountain of youth -- and something rather unexpected. Ron Howard directed this lite sci fi comedy filmed on location in St. Petersburg. See how many places you recognize.

Bad Boys: Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are buddies in this Miami cops and robbers action film. The sequel, Bad Boys II, didn't get such great reviews ("Whatcha gonna do?") but it did get made into a video game.

The Cocoanuts: The Marx Brothers run a hotel in south Florida in the 1920s land boom. Best line: "You can have any kind of home you want. You can even get stucco. Oh, how you can get stucco."

Vernon, Florida: According to director Errol Morris' website, this "is an odd-ball survey of the inhabitants of a remote swamp-town in the Florida panhandle." Last month, the St. Petersburg Times ran an article about this "swamp-town" : "Dismembered Again."