New and Noteworthy on Florida Memory
Conjunto Aventura
Thursday, October 8, 2009
In recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month, we would like to spotlight a Mexican musical tradition that occurs throughout the state nearly every weekend of the year, yet escapes the notice of most Floridians. In Latin grocery stores and Mexican restaurants, at flea markets, produce stands, and laundromats, at day labor centers and public parks, small colorful fliers pepper bulletin boards promoting weekend entertainment featuring Mexican Norteño bands, traditional foods, music, dancing, and a sense of community for migrant workers and naturalized citizens far from their homes and families.
Norteño, sometimes also called Norteña or Conjunto, literally translates to the word “northern,” referring to the region of northern Mexico and present day southern Texas where the musical style originated. While the genre had its beginnings in rural areas and still exhibits agrarian lyrical imagery, its popularity has spread with migration to urban centers where some AM stations focus solely on music targeted to the Hispanic community. Norteño is specifically intended for dancing, primarily driven by the accordion, bajo sexto, drums, and occasionally a single saxophone, and differs greatly from the brass heavy ensembles of Mariachi. Norteño was born from a combination of German, Czech, and Mexican instrumentation and rhythms, and is typically performed through polkas, corridos, rancheras, and cumbias.
This podcast features Conjunto Aventura, a Norteño ensemble from south Florida, performing at the 2006 Florida Folk Festival. Their exuberant performance well demonstrates exactly why this music remains a popular genre among Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Enjoy.
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All’s Fair in the Sunshine State
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Sales representatives in "spacettes" costume pose before the rocket entranceway of Tupperware Home Parties Inc.: Orlando, Florida (1960)
What do Tupperware, NASA, and orange juice have in common? They are all possible topics for the 2010 Florida History Fair’s theme, “Innovation in History: Impact and Change.” The statewide contest will be held May 2-4, 2010.
The theme for the 2010 Florida History Fair has been announced, and the Museum of Florida History has compiled a list of possible topics to help guide students in selecting a project. In order to assist students with their research, Florida Memory has made resources available in the Online Classroom that relate to the list of possible Florida topics.
“Common Ground”: A Global Celebration of Historic Photographs
Monday, September 21, 2009
Please join the State Library and Archives of Florida for a special viewing of a slideshow of historic photographs from around the world.
The slideshow will be presented on October 2, 2009, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the R.A. Gray Building in Tallahassee.This event will be part of Tallahassee’s First Friday Gallery Hop, and will be open to the public.
The presentation is part of “Common Ground,” a global event consisting of museums, galleries, and archives worldwide showing the same slideshow of photographs in public spaces on the same weekend (October 2-3, 2009). The State Library and Archives will join the Powerhouse Museum of Sydney, Australia; the State Library of New South Wales; the Brooklyn Museum; the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; and other institutions to create this global “meet-up” celebrating historic photographs.
These institutions have come together online as part of The Commons on Flickr, a virtual space that began as a collaboration between Flickr and the Library of Congress. The Commons on Flickr features hidden treasures in the world’s public photography archives, and asks users to add their research and knowledge to help enrich these collections. The images on The Commons on Flickr are used by teachers, librarians, researchers, photographers, and others to promote a deeper understanding of local and global history.
The best images on The Commons on Flickr have been chosen by viewers who voted for photographs from all the Commons institutions. We invite you to join the State Library and Archives in celebrating this global community-curated event.
The slideshow will also be available on the State Library and Archives’ Florida Memory site. The Florida Memory Program is funded by a Library Services and Technology Act grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, administered by the Florida Department of State, State Library and Archives of Florida.
Ida Goodson
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Jazz pianist Ida Goodson was born into a musically gifted family near Pensacola, Florida, in 1909. She was the youngest of seven girls raised by strict Southern Baptist parents who prohibited the playing of secular music in the home. Despite that, both she and her sister, Wilhelmina Goodson, learned to play the piano and developed a love for barrelhouse blues and jazz. Wilhelmina later became known as Billie Pierce, wife of jazz trumpeter Dee Dee Pierce, who was an original member of New Orleans’ famed Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
Goodson performed throughout the South but maintained a home base in Pensacola, where she often accompanied tours with national stars such as Bessie Smith. She was adept at several different styles of music, including gospel, jazz, blues, vaudeville, and popular songs. In 1979, she was rediscovered by field researchers working for the Florida Folklife Commission, who included several of her compositions on the widely acclaimed Drop on Down in Florida double album.
Goodson became a mainstay at the Florida Folk Festival and was awarded the prestigious Florida Folk Heritage Award in 1987. In 1989, she appeared in the documentary film Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues, and at age 80 she stole the show from the younger, more widely known musicians.
This month’s podcast helps to illustrate how she did it. This feature was compiled from several recording sessions with Goodson conducted in December of 1981. Her unique revisions of traditional gospel pieces go hand in hand with solo piano blues and jazz standards featuring a full ensemble of accompanying musicians.
We think you’ll agree that Ida knew a thing or two about the blues. Enjoy.
Les Paul, June 9, 1915 - August 13, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Popular music duo Les Paul and wife Mary Ford at WOND radio studio: Pleasantville, New Jersey (between 1951 and 1957)
Full-Length Films Now Available on Florida Memory
Thursday, July 9, 2009
New selections of historic film footage are now available on the State Library and Archives of Florida’s Florida Memory Web site. Previously, only short clips of these films were available online. Now visitors to the site can view the films in their entirety.
The State Archives of Florida houses more than 7,500 movies and videotapes created by state agencies, filmmakers, and individual donors. The films date from 1914 to the 1980s, and cover a variety of topics including education, the environment, tourism, industry, integration, and politics. Full-length versions of 19 unique Florida films are now available on the Florida Memory Web site, with more to come as archivists continue to digitize the collection.
Letter from H. Lee (Henry Lee IV) to Judge Woodward (Augustus Brevoort Woodward) September 15, 1824
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
This early territorial letter was found among a batch of 1850s case files from the Florida Supreme Court.
In the letter, Henry Lee IV (1787-1837), son of General Henry Lee (1756–1818) and half-brother of Robert E. Lee, writes to Judge Augustus Brevoort Woodward, judge of Florida’s Middle District superior court, asking Woodward to support and file a claim on Lee’s behalf for land in East Florida.
Physician's Journal
Thursday, June 11, 2009
In 1843, Dr. John M. W. Davidson of Gadsden County began recording medical recipes and treatments in a small, leather-bound notebook.
The 126-page journal reveals a glimpse of the knowledge and concerns of a pioneer physician in early Florida, including recipes for medicines, diet supplements, tinctures, salves, and treatments for illnesses as varied as colic and typhoid fever.
Florida Memory Photos Now Available on Flickr
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Historic photographs from the State Library and Archives of Florida's Florida Memory Program are now available for public viewing and comment through an online photo collection called The Commons on Flickr.
In 2008, Flickr partnered with the Library of Congress to launch the site as a pilot project. The program's main goals are to feature hidden treasures in the world’s public photography archives, and to demonstrate how user input and knowledge can help to enrich these collections.
Viewers are invited to help describe the photographs, either by adding descriptive terms known as tags, or by leaving comments. Today, contributors to The Commons include the Smithsonian, the National Galleries of Scotland, the Bibliothèque de Toulouse, the George Eastman House, and other noteworthy repositories.
The State Library and Archives encourages Floridians to enjoy the historic photographs on this site, and perhaps to contribute to it by adding tags and descriptions.
State Library and Archives of Florida Adds New Broadsides Collection to Florida Memory Project
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
The State Library and Archives of Florida has added a collection of Florida broadsides and other ephemera, titled Selling, Telling, and Yelling: Florida Broadsides and Other Ephemera, 1800-2000, to Florida Memory.
Before television, radio, and the Internet, Florida society often communicated through broadsides, advertisements, flyers, and other ephemera.
Broadsides are large, one-sided printed posters used for public communication. They were usually posted in prominent public spaces such as churches, street corners, and town halls. Typical examples of broadsides include campaign posters, playbills, public notices, announcements, petitions, proclamations, and advertisements.
However, print communications were not limited to broadsides, and included pamphlets, cards, tickets, blank forms, flyers, reprinted newspaper articles, and political cartoons.
These materials are often referred to as ephemera because of their transitory nature. They were meant to quickly convey a message and then to be disposed of.
Fortunately for us and for future generations, much of this material has been preserved. Today they offer a unique window into Florida's past in much the same way that billboards, television and newspaper ads, e-mails, and blogs will reveal much about our present society to tomorrow's historians.
