Jacksonville In The 1920s

The Jacksonville architecture of the 1920s was a marvel as it dotted the glowing skyline--which could easily be seen across the St. Johns River at that time. Jacksonville in the 1920s shows a drastically different city compared to how it looks in the 2020s. Most of the early buildings have been demolished, although a few survive, including the Barnett, the Carling, and the Florida Theatre. Beyond the urban core of Jacksonville are the neighborhoods of Springfield, Riverside Avondale, San Marco, and San Jose, which all underwent drastic changes in the 1920s. The nearby beaches are intertwined with the city in that they not only represent the beauty of that metropolis, complete with its exuberant citizens, but one of those beaches, Pablo Beach, was renamed Jacksonville Beach in the 1920s. This was also the time of the Harlem Renaissance, which impacted the local Black community.

Florida’s railroads emerged in the 1830s amid Native American upheaval and territorial colonization. Many periods of development marked this fascinating heritage, but one era towers above the rest: the 1920s. It was then that Florida experienced a colossal land boom, one of the greatest migration and building stories in American history. People poured into the state as never before, real estate traded hands at breakneck speed, and the landscape added countless new homes, hotels, apartments, and commercial buildings. Florida’s biggest railroads—the Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard Air Line, and Florida East Coast—were unprepared for the tidal wave of traffic. Thus, the “Big Three” had to rapidly expand and increase capacity. Dozens of projects unfolded at great cost, by one estimate over $100 million. When the building frenzy ended, the railway map of the state stood at its greatest extent—some 5,700 miles. Further, the frequency of railway service within and to the Sunshine State reached an unprecedented level, never again to be repeated.

Hard Labor and Hard Time is a history of continuity and change in Florida's state prison system between 1910 and 1957, exploring conditions at the state prison farm at Raiford (the third largest prison farm in the South at this time) as well as in the chain gangs and road prisons. Vivien Miller examines the experiences of the prisoners as well as the guards and other prison personnel in this comprehensive, groundbreaking study. She demonstrates that despite progressive changes in the treatment of inmates (better diet, better structuring of work and leisure activities, better medical provision, and the like), these improvements were matched by continued brutality and mistreatment, unequal or discriminatory treatment according to race and/or gender, and neglect.

A comprehensive directory of more than 600 entries, this detailed ready reference features professional, semi-professional, and academic stage organizations and theatres that have been in the forefront in pioneering most of the advances that African Americans have made in the theatre. It includes groups from the early 19th century to the dawn of the revolutionary Black theatre movement of the 1960s. It is an effort to bring together into one volume information that has hitherto been scattered throughout a number of different sources. The volume begins with an illuminating foreword by Errol Hill, a noted critic, playwright, scholar and Willard Professor of Drama Emeritus, Dartmouth College. A comprehensive directory of more than 600 entries, this detailed ready reference features professional, semi-professional, and academic stage organizations and theatres that have been in the forefront in pioneering most of the advances that African Americans have made in the theatre. It includes groups from the early 19th century to the dawn of the revolutionary Black theatre movement of the 1960s. It is an effort to bring together into one volume information that has hitherto been scattered throughout a number of different sources. The volume begins with an illuminating foreword by Errol Hill, a noted critic, playwright, scholar and Willard Professor of Drama Emeritus, Dartmouth College. Included in the volume are the earliest organizations that existed before the Civil War, Black minstrel troupes, pioneer musical show companies, selected vaudeville and road show troupes, professional theatrical associations, booking agencies, stock companies, significant amateur and little theatre groups, Black units of the WPA Federal Theatre, and semi-professional groups in Harlem after the Federal Theatre. The A-Z entries are supplemented with a classified appendix that also includes additional organizations not listed in the main directory, a bibliography, and three indexes for shows, showpeople, and general subjects. Cross referencing makes related information easy to find.

Suffrage at 100 looks at women's engagement in US electoral politics and government over the one hundred years since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In the 2018 midterm elections, 102 women were elected to the House and 14 to the Senate—a record for both bodies. And yet nearly a century after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the notion of congressional gender parity by 2020—a stated goal of the National Women's Political Caucus at the time of its founding in 1971—remains a distant ideal. In Suffrage at 100, Stacie Taranto and Leandra Zarnow bring together twenty-two scholars to take stock of women's engagement in electoral politics over the past one hundred years. This is the first wide-ranging collection to historically examine women's full political engagement in and beyond electoral office since they gained a constitutional right to vote. The book explores why women's access to, and influence on, political power remains frustratingly uneven, particularly for women of color and queer women. Examining how women have acted collectively and individually, both within and outside of electoral and governmental channels, the book moves from the front lines of community organizing to the highest glass ceiling. Essays touch on • labor and civil rights • education • environmentalism • enfranchisement and voter suppression • conservatism vs. liberalism • indigeneity and transnationalism • LGBTQ and personal politics • Pan-Asian, Chicana, and black feminisms • commemoration and public history • and much more. Contributors: Melissa Estes Blair, Eileen Boris, Marisela R. Chávez, Claire Delahaye, Nicole Eaton, Liette Gidlow, Holly Miowak Guise (Iñupiaq), Emily Suzanne Johnson, Dean J. Kotlowski, Monica L. Mercado, Johanna Neuman, Kathleen Banks Nutter, Katherine Parkin, Ellen G. Rafshoon, Bianca Rowlett, Sarah B. Rowley, Ana Stevenson, Barbara Winslow, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Nancy Beck Young

Examines the birth of the American middle class as white-collar workers used their growing consumer identity to organize politically

During the Roaring Twenties, millions of Americans moved to the Sunshine State seeking quick riches in real estate. Many made fortunes; others returned home penniless. Within a few years thousands of residential subdivisions, palatial estates, inviting apartment buildings and impressive commercial complexes were built. Opulent theaters and imposing churches opened, along with hundreds of municipal projects. A unique architectural theme emerged, today known as Mediterranean Revival. Railways and highways saw a renaissance. New cities--Boca Raton, Hollywood-by-the-Sea, Venice--were built from scratch and dozens of existing communities like St. Petersburg, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando were forever transformed by the speculative fever. Florida has experienced numerous land booms but none more sweeping than that of the 1920s. This illuminating account details how one of the greatest migration and development episodes in American history began, reached dizzying heights, then rapidly collapsed.

The passenger train has long held a special place in the imagination of Americans, and Indiana was once a bustling passenger train crossroads. Limiteds, Locals, and Expresses in Indiana, 1838–1971 brings to life the countless locals, accommodation trains, and secondary expresses that Hoosiers patronized during the Golden Age of the passenger train. Craig Sanders gives us a comprehensive history of intercity passenger service in Indiana, from the time railroads began to develop in the state in the mid-19th century through May 1, 1971, when Amtrak began operations. Each chapter summarizes the history and development of one railroad, discusses the factors that shaped that railroad's passenger service—such as prolonged financial difficulties, competition, and the influence of a strong leader—and concludes with a detailed account of its passenger operations in Indiana. Sixteen maps, 87 photographs, and other evocative illustrations supplement Sanders's text.