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Once Upon a Time in Florida

Name: Once Upon a Time in Florida
Author: Jacki Levine
ISBN: 9798987660805

Stories of Life in the Land of Promises

Edited by Jacki Levine

Published by: Florida Humanities

Series: Florida Humanities Partnership Publications

Curated from the archives of FORUM, the award-winning magazine of Florida Humanities, this anthology presents 50 often surprising and always intriguing stories of life in Florida by some of the nation’s most talented writers and scholars.

344 Pages9.13 × 11.00200 color and b/w illus.

Hardcover
9798987660805
Published: October 24, 2023

$45.00

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9798987660829
Published: October 24, 2023

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PDF
9798987660812
Published: October 24, 2023

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Description
Authors
Praise
Table of Contents

Distributed by University Press of Florida on behalf of Florida Humanities

Florida Book Awards, Honorable Mention for Florida Nonfiction

Once Upon a Time in Florida transports readers into the eventful life and times of this remarkable state through 50 stories vividly rendered by some of the nation’s most acclaimed writers and scholars, along with 150 evocative images. This collection opens more than 14,000 years ago with the first people to inhabit the peninsula and continues through the state’s territorial beginnings, the era of slavery, statehood, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Jim Crow period, and Florida’s transformation into a complex, powerful megastate.

Throughout, readers will encounter the unexpected: The myth-busting truths behind Ponce de Leon’s search for the Fountain of Youth; the real First Thanksgiving; the first legally sanctioned free Black town; the revealing wartime letters of novelist Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings; the Jacksonville principal who penned the lyrics now known as the Black National Anthem; and the little-known story of how Mary McLeod Bethune saved World War II-era Daytona Beach. The stories also highlight Florida as a magnet for dreamers and doers, featuring the heady days of the Space Age seen through the eyes of a teenager; the secretive mission that brought Walt Disney to Orlando; the music culture that has churned out a stream of Rock and Roll Hall of Famers; and a look at how Florida’s glossy image has been indelibly shaped through the eyes of Hollywood.

Told through the lens of the humanities, at its heart this anthology is the story of what it means to be a Floridian. In these pages, folklorist Stetson Kennedy travels the back roads with novelist Zora Neale Hurston, capturing vanishing stories and songs. Former U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Latina in Congress, remembers her family’s early days as Cuban refugees. Novelist Lauren Groff describes how the writings of literary giants taught her to love Florida. Columnist Bill Maxwell and novelist Beverly Coyle, who grew up in the waning days of Jim Crow, share clear-eyed memories of experiences as different as black and white. And southern grit writer Harry Crews tells of a family memory evoked by the Suwannee River.

There is much more to discover in this vibrant anthology, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of Florida Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and presents selections from the timeless and treasure-filled archives of Florida Humanities’ award-winning FORUM magazine.

“Just as the music of our lives strikes the same perfect tone every time we listen, this is a collection of best resonance. These essays and stories . . . reflect the mission of Florida Humanities itself, to help us understand the complex richness that is Florida.”—From the foreword by Nashid Madyun, executive director, Florida Humanities
“For 50 years, Florida Humanities has worked to serve the needs of communities around the state to provide Floridians with opportunities for dialogue, cultural enrichment, and meaningful engagement with history, literature, and ideas. Once Upon a Time in Florida, from the humanities council’s magazine FORUM, captures the state’s unique identity, rich historical past, and the diversity of its residents. From the Apalachee, Calusa, Timucua, and other Native peoples who cultivated the land and harvested the sea millennia before Ponce De Leon made landfall, to Zora Neale Hurston’s groundbreaking work documenting the folklore and musical traditions of the state’s African American towns and communities, to the creation of Disney World, the book illuminates some of Florida’s most fascinating and consequential characters and moments and the magnetic pull the state has always exerted on America’s dreamers.”—Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo), Chair, National Endowment for the Humanities
“Jacki Levine has skillfully woven together essays from FORUM, the award-winning magazine of Florida Humanities, to give readers precious insights into the emergence of the Sunshine State as a place that for better or worse has become a trendsetter in American politics, culture, and economics. This volume reaffirms the enduring importance of the humanities in grappling with the beguiling historical problems of the United States that remain unresolved in our own time. Once Upon a Time in Florida is a brilliant anthology of Florida history and the human condition.”—Paul Ortiz, Professor of History and Director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, University of Florida
“Celebrating fifty years of Florida Humanities and its magazine FORUM, Once Upon a Time in Florida is a declaration of love for a state and its unique history. Beautifully designed, richly illustrated, and brilliantly written, the collected fifty essays illuminate the Florida experience for multi-generational Floridians and newcomers alike.”—Barbara Mennel, professor and former director, Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, University of Florida
“It’s been said that modern Florida was shaped by larger-than-life figures from elsewhere. Many of them as well as plenty of homegrown characters are represented in this compilation of works by premier storytellers. Florida is such a diverse and complicated place that it seems ready-made for an anthology like this one, which shows us why Florida is endlessly fascinating and a story that is still unfolding.”—David Powell, author of Ninety Miles and a Lifetime Away: Memories of Early Cuban Exiles

“Handsomely designed and packed with photographs, this wide-ranging anthology is a fine introduction for newcomers as well as a treasure trove for residents who want to better understand the state they’re in.”—Tampa Bay Times

Foreword
Nashid Madyun

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Jacki Levine

Part 1. Beginnings

1. The First Floridians: They survived many millennia of a changing environment until disease and deadly conflict came from across the sea
Jerald T. Milanich

2. Who Started the Myth of the Fountain of Youth? Exploring the murky beginnings of Florida’s most enduring fable
J. Michael Francis

3. The Real First Thanksgiving: Half a century earlier—and 1,200 miles south—a feast of gratitude
Michael Gannon

4. Uncovering Fort Mose: In America’s first free Black town, enslaved Africans found sanctuary and liberty
Kathleen Deagan

5. He Persisted: Francisco Menéndez escaped slavery, became a militia leader, and then did it all again
Darcie A. MacMahon

6. How Seashells Saved St. Augustine: This modest mollusk displayed a secret strength
Michael Gannon

7. On the Backs of the Enslaved: How Middle Florida and its planter class built wealth and power
Larry Eugene Rivers

8. Florida Gives Its All to the Civil War: Whatever their loyalties, few Floridians were spared the conflict’s costs
Robert A. Taylor

Part 2. Florida Comes of Age: Promise and Paradox

9. The Eye of the Beholder: Swampy hellhole or perfect paradise, travel writers have portrayed visions of vastly different Floridas
Casey Blanton

10. Taking the Waters: For Victorian-era visitors, Florida held the promise of miracle cures
Rick Kilby

11. The Florida Century: Through boom and bust, this outback became a megastate
Gary R. Mormino

12. Along the Backroads, 1930s: Remembering when Zora and I chased the vanishing folklife of Florida
Stetson Kennedy

13. Dear Honey: Wartime life and letters of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Betty Jean Steinshouer

14. When the WACs Came Marching In: How Mary McLeod Bethune—and the Women’s Army Corps—rescued struggling Daytona Beach
Gordon Patterson

15. The Mighty Orange Faces Its Uncertain Future: Changing tastes, stubborn disease put the squeeze on a beloved state symbol
Gary R. Mormino

16. Recollections of a Space Traveler: Former congressman and astronaut Bill Nelson shares the perils that lurked before, during, and after his historic mission
Bill Nelson with Rick Edmonds

17. Memoirs of a Child of the Space Program: Blasts from the past, in a time and place like no other
Andrea Brunais

18. Florida’s Fields of Dreams: How sports have boosted our fortunes and, at times, healed our divides
Steven Noll

19. The Mouse That Roared Quietly: With secrecy worthy of a spy novel, Walt Disney set his sights on Orlando
Richard Foglesong

20. How They See Us: The small screen portrays a Florida you may not recognize
Eric Deggans

Part 3. All Things Unequal under the Sun

Parallel Lives: Growing up in Florida in the 1950s and ’60s, two Floridians, one white and one Black, describe wildly different experiences

21. Raised with Love, Schooled in Cruel Realities: In childhood, he learned the harsh lessons of Jim Crow and, finally, the power of being seen
Bill Maxwell

22. A Sheltered 1950s Childhood, Then an Awakening: All this minister’s daughter knew was segregation, but slowly her eyes opened to the damage and the loss
Beverly Coyle

23. That Summer of ’64: Martin Luther King Jr. and the fight for racial justice in St. Augustine
David R. Colburn

Part 4. When a Deadly Pandemic Strikes

24. A Lesson in the Pandemic: Teaching our young daughter to cope when Dad was on Covid-19’s frontlines
Nila Do Simon

Part 5. We Were Strangers Here Ourselves

25. Finding Florida: Out of so many puzzle pieces, how can you create one state identity?
Stephen J. Whitfield

26. We Are Here to Enlighten, Not Accuse: A Seminole historian urges accuracy as Florida commemorates the Spanish landing
Willie Johns

27. Observations of a Native Son: Former governor and US senator Bob Graham on the “Cincinnati Factor” and why Florida remains the “State of Imagination”
Ron Cunningham

28. Adiós a los Niños: Parents waved farewell in sadness and hope, as their children were secreted out of Castro’s Cuba
Jon Wilson

29. When Life Takes Flight: Thirty years after fleeing Cuba, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen made history in the US Congress
Dalia Colón

30. Sweetness of Memory: Photographer Andy Sweet poignantly captured the waning days of South Beach’s elderly Jewish community before his own life was cut short
Bill DeYoung

31. What You See When You Look at Me: A Haitian immigrant meets her neighbors
Maude Heurtelou

Part 6. This State of Inspiration

32. Finding a Literary Path Home: Learning to love Florida, through the writers who knew it first
Lauren Groff

33. Many Voices from Afar: For 500 years, Florida’s literary life has thrived on the state’s complexity
Maurice J. O’Sullivan

34. Echoes in the Wind: In search of the poetry of Florida’s Native people
Maurice J. O’Sullivan

35. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Florida Snowbird: Winters in a Mandarin cabin transformed her writing and sparked a tourist boom
Michele Currie Navakas

36. Lift Every Voice and Sing: James Weldon Johnson’s song for Jacksonville schoolchildren became an anthem for the ages
Craig Pittman

37. Jack Kerouac’s Florida Farewell: He found a fertile place to work but no escape from his demons as his road reached its end
Thomas Hallock

38. Muse over Miami: How a hopeless kid from New Jersey became South Florida’s “Queen of Crime”
Edna Buchanan

39. Once Upon a Time in Key West: Writer Philip Caputo laments what’s been lost and what still stirs his soul
Philip Caputo

40. The Highwaymen: Painting fast and selling their dreamy landscapes cheaply, these young Black artists created a lasting vision of a Florida Eden
Gary Monroe

41. Singing the Songs of Florida: A White Springs festival celebrates the elusive music that is Florida folk
Peter B. Gallagher

42. The Great State of Rock: A star-studded group of Florida guitar masters electrified rock and roll
Bob Kealing

Part 7. Roots and Rivers

43. The Wondrous Gulf: How its bounty and its bluster have shaped the story of Florida
Jack E. Davis

44. The Tales They Tell: Fish camps preserve the soul of a vanishing way of life
Charlie Hailey

45. The Marvelous, Misunderstood Mullet: Tracing the storied past of Florida’s least respected and most important fish
Terry Tomalin

46. Florida’s Deep-Blue Destiny: From the depths of a spring it is clear, we lose connection with the state’s waterways at our peril
Bill Belleville

47. Remembering Bill Belleville: His storytelling celebrates the mystery and glory of our state’s waterways
Cynthia Barnett

48. River of Grass: How a New England transplant came to champion and name an unloved but extraordinary wetland
Jack E. Davis

49. Clyde’s Quest: Neither snakes nor alligators nor giant mosquitoes can keep this photographer from his beloved Everglades
Jeff Klinkenberg

50. And on to the Sea: Thinking of Uncle Cooter, on the banks of the river he gifted to me
Harry Crews

Index

Books

Authors

Journals

On The Site

Books

Authors

Journals

On The Site

Once Upon a Time in Florida

Stories of Life in the Land of Promises

Once Upon a Time in Florida

Stories of Life in the Land of Promises

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