A leading Florida historian explores one of the state's
most consequential eras
It was a time of stunning episodes of boom and bust, an era of
extremes, a decade of historic changes that point to ...Florida's
future. In this book, eminent historian Gary Mormino illuminates
early twenty-first-century Florida and its connections to some of
the most significant events in contemporary American history.
Following Mormino's milestone work Land of Sunshine, State
of Dreams , which details the dynamic history of Florida from
1950 to 2000, Dreams in the New Century explores the
state's tumultuous next chapter, a period that included the Bush v.
Gore election, 9/11, the housing bubble and Great Recession, and
the election of Barack Obama. During these years the Elián González
story engrossed the country, Tim Tebow rose to football fame, and
Donald Trump became a Florida celebrity. From hurricanes to Ponzi
schemes, red tides, climate change, the "Stand-Your-Ground" gun
law, demographic diversity, and more, Florida offered nonstop news
fodder that reflected its extraordinary internal trends and its
importance in the nation.
As Mormino shows, Florida is a place of deep conflicts-North and
South, liberal and conservative, newcomer and local, growth and
conservation-with histories that can be traced back centuries. In
2000 ‒ 2010, Mormino argues, these tensions collided to produce a
"Big Bang" that will continue to resonate in years to come. Mormino
takes stock of this crucible of change and explains the social,
cultural, and political intricacies of a state the world struggles
to understand. Dreams in the New Century unravels
Florida's complicated recent history in a gripping, informative,
and fascinating narrative.
Soil contamination in urban environment by trace metals is of public concerns. For better risk assessment, it is important to determine their background concentrations in urban soils. For this study, ...we determined the background concentrations of 9 trace metals including As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cu, Ni, Pb, Se, and Zn in 214 urban soils in Florida from two large cities (Orlando and Tampa) and 4 small cities (Clay County, Ocala, Pensacola and West Palm Beach). The objectives were to determine: 1) total concentrations of trace metals in urban soils in cities of different size; 2) compare background concentrations to Florida Soil Cleanup Target Levels (FSCTLs); and 3) determine their distribution and variability in urban soils via multivariate statistical analysis. Elemental concentrations in urban soils were variable, with Pb being the highest in 5 cities (165–552 mg kg−1) and Zn being the highest concentration in Tampa (1,000 mg kg−1). Besides, the As and Pb concentrations in some soils exceeded the FSCTL for residential sites at 2.1 mg kg−1 As and 400 mg kg−1 Pb. Among the cities, Clay County and Orlando had the lowest concentrations for most elements, with Cd, Co, and As being the lowest while Ba, Pb and Zn being the highest. Among all values, geometric means were the lowest while 95th percentile was the highest for all metals. Most 95th percentile values were 2–3 folds higher than the GM data, with Pb presenting the greatest difference, being 4 times greater than GM value (58.9 vs. 13.6 mg kg−1). Still they were lower than FSCTL, with As exceeding FSCTL for residential sites at 2.1 mg kg−1. In addition, the linear discriminate analysis showed distinct separation among the cities: Ocala (Ba & Ni) and Pensacola (As & Pb) were distinctly different from each other and from other cities with higher metal concentrations. The large variations among elemental concentrations showed the importance to establish proper background concentrations of trace metals in urban soils.
Display omitted
•Background concentrations of 9 trace elements in 214 urban soils were determined.•Arithmetic and geometric mean, 95th percentile and upper confidence level were calculated.•Regardless city size, human activities had similar impacts on elemental concentrations.•As, Ba, Cr and Pb levels exceeded Florida Soil Cleanup Target Levels for residential sites.•Among all values, GM was the lowest while 95th percentile was the highest.
Large concentration variations showed the importance to establish proper background concentrations of trace metals in urban soils.
This book chronicles the creation of Everglades National Park, the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. This effort, which spanned 1928 to 1958, was of central importance to the later ...emergence of modern environmentalism. Prior to the park's creation, the Everglades was seen as a reviled and useless swamp, unfit for typical recreational or development projects. The region's unusual makeup also made it an unlikely candidate to become a national park, as it had none of the sweeping scenic vistas or geological monuments found in other nationally protected areas.Park advocates drew on new ideas concerning the value of biota and ecology, the importance of wilderness, and the need to protect habitats, marine ecosystems, and plant life to redefine the Everglades. Using these ideas, the Everglades began to be recognized as an ecologically valuable and fragile wetland-and thus a region in need of protective status.While these new ideas foreshadowed the later emergence of modern environmentalism, tourism and the economic desires of Florida's business and political elites also impacted the park's future. These groups saw the Everglades' unique biology and ecology as a foundation on which to build a tourism empire. They connected the Everglades to Florida's modernization and commercialization, hoping the park would help facilitate the state's transformation into the Sunshine State. Political conservatives welcomed federal power into Florida so long as it brought economic growth.Yet, even after the park's creation, conservative landowners successfully fought to limit the park and saw it as a threat to their own economic freedoms. Today, a series of levees on the park's eastern border marks the line between urban and protected areas, but development into these areas threatens the park system. Rising sea levels caused by global warming are another threat to the future of the park. The battle to save the swamp's biodiversity continues, and Everglades Park stands at the center of ongoing restoration efforts.
A look at the antebellum history and architecture of the little-known sugar industry of East Florida .   From the late eighteenth century to early 1836, the heart of the Florida sugar industry ...was concentrated in East Florida, between the St. Johns River and the Atlantic Ocean. Producing the sweetest sugar, molasses, and rum, at least 22 sugar plantations dotted the coastline by the 1830s. This industry brought prosperity to the region—employing farm hands, slaves, architects, stone masons, riverboats and their crews, shop keepers, and merchant traders. But by January 1836, Native American attacks of the Second Seminole War, intending to rid the Florida frontier of settlers, devastated the whole sugar industry.   Although sugar works again sprang up in other Florida regions just prior to the Civil War, the competition from Louisiana and the Caribbean blocked a resurgence of sugar production for the area. The sugar industry would never regain its importance in East Florida—only two of the original sugar works were ever rebuilt. Today, remains of this once thriving industry are visible in a few parks. Some are accessible but others lie hidden, slowly disintegrating and almost forgotten. Archaeological, historical, and architectural research in the last decade has returned these works to their once prominent place in Florida’s history, revealing the beauty, efficiency of design, as well as early industrial engineering. Equally important is what can be learned of the lives of those associated with the sugar works and the early plantation days along the East Florida frontier.
The British colony of West Florida-which once stretched from the mighty Mississippi to the shallow bends of the Apalachicola and portions of what are now the states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, ...and Louisiana-is the forgotten fourteenth colony of America's Revolutionary era. The colony's eventful years as a part of the British Empire form an important and compelling interlude in Gulf Coast history that has for too long been overlooked. For a host of reasons, including the fact that West Florida did not rebel against the British Government, the colony has long been dismissed as a loyal but inconsequential fringe outpost, if considered at all. But the colony's history showcases a tumultuous political scene featuring a halting attempt at instituting representative government; a host of bold and colorful characters; a compelling saga of struggle and perseverance in the pursuit of financial stability; and a dramatic series of battles on land and water which brought about the end of its days under the Union Jack. In Fourteenth Colony, historian Mike Bunn offers the first comprehensive history of the colony, introducing readers to the Gulf Coast's remarkable British period and putting West Florida back in its rightful place on the map of Colonial America.
<!CDATA
Mission Cemeteries, Mission Peoples offers clear, accessible explanations of complex methods for observing evolutionary effects in populations. Christopher Stojanowski's intimate knowledge of ...the historical, archaeological, and skeletal data illuminates the existing narrative of diet, disease, and demography in Spanish Florida and demonstrates how the intracemetery analyses he employs can provide likely explanations for issues where the historical information is either silent or ambiguous.
Stojanowski forgoes the traditional broad analysis of Native American populations and instead looks at the physical person who lived in the historic Southeast. What did that person eat? Did he suffer from chronic diseases? With whom did she go to a Spanish church? Where was she buried in death? The answers to these questions allow us to infer much about the lives of mission peoples.
>
This Land Is Our Land Stepick, Alex; Grenier, Guillermo; Castro, Max ...
04/2003
eBook
For those opposed to immigration, Miami is a nightmare. Miami is the de facto capital of Latin America; it is a city where immigrants dominate, Spanish is ubiquitous, and Denny's is an ethnic ...restaurant. Are Miami's immigrants representative of a trend that is undermining American culture and identity? Drawing from in-depth fieldwork in the city and looking closely at recent events such as the Elián González case,This Land Is Our Landexamines interactions between immigrants and established Americans in Miami to address fundamental questions of American identity and multiculturalism. Rather than focusing on questions of assimilation, as many other studies have, this book concentrates on interethnic relations to provide an entirely new perspective on the changes wrought by immigration in the United States. A balanced analysis of Miami's evolution over the last forty years,This Land Is Our Landis also a powerful demonstration that immigration in America is not simply an "us versus them" phenomenon.
Likely to raise hackles among Democrats and Republicans alike, this dynamic history of modern Florida argues that the Sunshine State has become the political and demographic future of the nation. ...David Colburn reveals how Florida gradually abandoned the traditions of race and personality that linked it to the Democratic Party. The book focuses particularly on the population growth and chaotic gubernatorial politics that altered the state from 1940, when it was a sleepy impoverished southern outpost, to the present and the emergence of a dominant Republican Party.
Jump into the wacky, wild world of FloridaFor more than 30 years, investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author Craig Pittman has chronicled the wildest stories Florida has to offer. ...Featuring a selection of columns that have appeared in the Tampa Bay Times and other outlets throughout Pittman's career, this book highlights just how strange and wonderful Florida can be.With a folksy style, an eye for the absurd, and a passion for the history and environment of his home state, Pittman describes some of Florida's oddest wildlife as well as its quirkiest people. The State You're In includes a love story involving the most tattooed woman in the world, a deep dive into the state's professional mermaid industry, and an investigation of a battle between residents of a nudist resort and the U.S. Postal Service. Pittman introduces readers to a who's who of Florida crime fiction, a what's what of exotic animals, and an array of beloved places he's seen change rapidly in his lifetime.Many of these stories are funny, some are serious, and several offer rare insights into the heart of the Sunshine State. For Pittman, Florida is both inspiring and dangerous—an "evolutionary test" for those who live in it. Together these pieces paint a complex picture of a fascinating state longing for an identity beyond palm trees and punchlines.
