Part two in a series of selected highlights from the Work Project Administration’s Florida guidebook, Florida: a guide to the southernmost state, 1940 (c1939). All content is quoted directly from the Florida guidebook. Any comments in brackets are mine. [These selected excerpts are from the sections on Florida’s folklore history and its sports and recreation activities. The WPA’s take on the…
Read More »A selection of highlights from the Work Project Administration’s 1940 (c1939) survey guidebook to Florida. All content is quoted directly from the Florida guidebook. Comments in brackets are mine. On Florida’s Contemporary Scene Politically and socially, Florida has its own North and South, but its northern area is strictly southern and its southern area definitely northern (Florida, p. 3). [I grew…
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At a UCLA book sale I found a 1940 edition (1st edition, 2nd printing) of a Florida guidebook written and compiled by the Work Project Administration’s Federal Writers’ Project. The Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) was a New Deal-era program to provide employment opportunities to skilled workers such as writers, researchers, historians, librarians, and teachers (“New Deal Programs: Selected Library of…
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File this one under “Comically Long Book Title.” I recently found an edition of The Twentieth Century Atlas of the Commercial, Geographical and Historical World (that’s the short title) at an antique store in Santa Barbara, California. The atlas, created by J. Martin Miller, was originally published in 1899 and was reissued several times between 1902 and 1909 by various…
Read More »Here’s some intersting information: I recently bought an old pocket-sized book for 25 cents titled “Love Letters of Men and Women of Genius” at the Young Research Library’s book sale. It’s from Haldeman-Julius Publications, Girard, Kansas, edited by E. Haldeman-Julius. There’s no publication date but it’s very old. It contains love letters between Napoleon and Josephine; Mary Wollstonecraft and Gilbert…
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