“This is a must read for every railroad buff. It adds to the literature on Henry Bradley Plant and the machinations of late 19th century transportation barons. Plant led an interesting life—as a Confederate and a Yankee—juggling the demands for business success with an ever-changing political milieu. Plant’s achievements rivaled those of Henry Flagler in making modern Florida.” - Nick Wynne, The Florida Historical Society

The voyages of Juan Ponce de León and his expeditions in Florida have long held a romantic and mythic place in American history. Speculation about his first landing in Florida, about the legend of the Fountain of Youth, and about Ponce de León.s reasons for setting sail to Florida have engaged chroniclers, historians, and even sailing masters for five centuries. In this volume, the Florida Historical Society has assembled articles by leading scholars who offer their perspectives on the voyages and trace changing views on Ponce de León as historians discover new information and reevaluate older works. This collection includes both new work and articles previously published in the FHS academic journal the Florida Historical Quarterly. The contributors include Eugene Lyon with Brandon Josef Szinável, J. Michael Francis, Jerald Milanich, Nara Milanich, T. Frederick Davis, Douglas T. Peck, and Amanda J. Snyder.

2019 David C. Brotemarkle Book Award Winner

This book delves into the life and legendary closet of Orlando fashion icon and philanthropist Harriett Lake (1922-2018). Through personal and vintage photos, lush photography exemplifying Harriett's signature styles, and quotes from the brassy, big-hearted grand dame herself, you will be awed by the magnitude of her wardrobe and magnanimity of this exceptional woman. This unique fashion biography begins with Harriett's childhood during the Great Depression, follows her service as a Marine during World War II, her flight from heartbreak to Miami Beach, and subsequent marriage. Harriett and her husband acquired wealth (and a closet full of jaw-dropping fashion) in Central Florida, thanks to the Disney World triggered 1960s real estate boom.

Stunningly illustrated with more than 800 impeccable photographs illustrating her 96 year life and highlighting over 200 of her favorite and most popular looks, the authors explain the connections between Harriett's life experiences and her fashion choices. Harriett oversaw the photo shoots herself, and expertly styled every look.

The authors are not historians or experts of any kind but they have traversed the waters of the river by air boat from the flood-plain and marshes southwest of Fellsmere which mark its beginning, and later by larger vessel to the point where its waters join one of the great oceans of the world. We have endeaved to show the river as we saw it and to provide accurate descriptions and information.

River Road Stories is a little masterpiece of story telling. Mary Eschbach, a Rockledge resident, captures life along the Indian River as only a resident can. What a wonderful way to celebrate a way of life that has passed us all by! --Patrick Smith, author of A Land Remembered

There are some authors and some books that you start to read with interest and finish with envy. River Road Stories is such a book. Packed in a few pages, Stories manages to describe in great detail the daily humdrum and occasional excitement of a young girl's life along the Indian River Lagoon. At the same time, River Road Stories is a song of praise for a lifestyle that is largely gone, but which exists forever in the mind of the author. Once you read River Road Stories, you'll become part of the past. --Nick Wynne, PhD, The Florida Historical Society

Adam was on his bike headed toward the beach in Boca Raton, Florida to look for treasures washed up by the waves. Instead he bumped into Phillip, a man who enchanted him with tales of adventures growing up on the same beach during World War II. Adam found his treasure it was Phillip's friendship and amazing hair-raising adventures of life in the small town of Boca Raton during the war years.

Overhead The Sun, a gripping historical novel about race relations in Florida during the late Nineteenth Century. Written by the late John Ashworth, Overhead The Sun is based on the tragic story of Rosewood, a small Florida community of African-Americans that was destroyed by a mob of whites in 1923. The central character in Overhead The Sun is Julia Clayton, a young woman striving mightily to achieve emotional and intellectual independence. Her husband, Tom Clayton, works for Arthur Wilkins (who is based on the real life person of Henry Flagler) who seeks to extend his hotel and railroad empire across the Sunshine State. Neglected and verbally abused, Julia Clayton takes a heretical economics professor, Thorstein Brach, as her lover. The intrigues and conflicts of personality that mark these tortured relationships light up the pages of Overhead The Sun.

In 1982, a backhoe operator working at what would become the new Windover Farms housing development in Titusville, Florida, uncovered a human skull. The bones of several other individuals soon emerged from the peat bog. It would be determined that the human remains uncovered at Windover were between 7,000 and 8,000 years old, making them 3,200 years older than King Tutankhamen and 2,000 years older than the Great Pyramids of Egypt. This was just the beginning of an archaeological adventure that continues today.

This book provides a look into the history of Leon County and its biggest city, Tallahassee, the capital of the State of Florida.

2017 Samuel Proctor Award Winner 

The historic photographs published in this book are part of the permanent collection and display at the Hannibal Square Heritage Center, located in Winter Park, Florida, USA. The center is a program of Crealdé School of Art and is operated in partnership with the City of Winter Park. The Heritage Center was established in 2007 as a tribute to the past, present and future of Winter Park's African American community. It is a unique cultural facility that celebrates community heritage through documentary photography and public art. Crealde School of Art is a forty year old, widely recognized visual arts school, offering an educational curriculum of over 100 courses for students of all ages and backgrounds, three galleries, and an award winning outreach program that brings arts and humanities to many underserved communities throughout Central Florida. Its mission is based on the belief that the arts are for everyone; every individual has a story worth telling and something creative to contribute, making a positive impact on family and community life.

2018 James J. Horgan Book Award Winner

It is June 1963 and fifteen-year-old Margaret Jefferson is being arrested at a sit-in at a lunch counter in St. Augustine. The Civil Rights Movement has found its way into her hometown, and Maggie feels a deep need to be a part of it. She believes in the ideals of the movement and the ultimate goal of equality. She also finds the nonviolence that the protestors are committed to very comforting.

However, as the summer and fall of 1963 unfold in St. Augustine, their nonviolent protests are met with rising resistance, aggression, and intimidation from local government officials as well as the Ku Klux Klan. Cattle prods used on protestors, firebombs thrown into the homes of families trying to integrate the schools, teenagers held in jail indefinitely. No one is safe, it seems.

This story, told through Maggie's innocent and hopeful eyes, will help a new generation of young people to understand the strength and sacrifices of those who worked so hard for civil rights in this country. It will also help to shine the spotlight on the role that St. Augustine, and Florida, had in the movement.

How did Florida, one of the country’s four smallest and least developed states in 1880, become within fifty years not only a tourist mecca but also a hub for technological innovation?

To explore this remarkable Golden Age, Rollins College brought together a wide variety of scholars and artists – historians and poets, biologists and environmental scientists, philosophers and literary critics – to help shine light on a period that, despite its challenges and failures, transformed the Sunshine State.  This volume brings together their insights as we all continue reflecting on our post, our present, and our future.

2011 Stetson Kennedy Award Winner

Dr. Winsboro's works bring into focus one of the most disturbing yet vital issues in Florida history. To get an idea of the breadth and dimension of the race problem in Florida's complex and long history, one needs only to read this collection of important essays and accompanying analysis by Dr. Winsboro. From this collection, the reader will find an amazing transformation in attitudes and academic research of this issue. For this wide and fresh perspective, we must give a hearty thanks to Dr. Winsboro and the Florida Historical Society Press. -Dr. Joe Knetsch, Historian and Author, Tallahassee, Florida

2008 Rembert Patrick Award Winner

This book is the story of people of vision and courage, of a small group of prominent Saint Augustine investors who conceived of the Florida waterway and began the first dredging work; of an obscure group of New England capitalists who provided significant financing and obtained a million acres of undeveloped Florida public land in pursuing what was, at best, a speculative enterprise; of innumerable citizen groups like the Florida east coast chamber associations and the larger Atlantic Deeper Waterways Association that demanded at the turn of the last century what they believed was the peoples right-a public waterway, free of the burden of tolls; and finally, of the U>S> Army Corps of Engineers, who conducted all of the Florida waterway's early surveys and assumed the project's control in 1929 to convert what was once a private toll way into Florida's modern-day, toll-free Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.

2012 Samuel Proctor Award Winner

"In the writings of Stetson Kennedy, education and social action are constantly joined. Generations of human rights advocates have used Stetson's investigative reporting and research to improve the conditions of agricultural workers, women, Latinos, and many others. Stetson Kennedy's pursuit of honesty, social equality, and freedom was unparalleled. He told the stories of America's forgotten people."
Dr. Paul Ortiz, Director Samuel Proctor Oral History Program University of Florida