Come to the Florida Sunshine Tree
One of the most iconic advertising campaigns of the 1970s featured singer Anita Bryant and a silent cartoon Orange Bird. What happened to it?...
Latin American Records of Past Epidemics
Latin American Epidemic statistics that were once hidden in old publications are now digitally available for researchers worldwide....
On Scribbling in Rare Books
We discourage patrons from writing in our books. But some come to us that way-like our copy of Horace’s collected works belonging to James Russell Lowell....
Malaria Epidemic at the University of Florida
This essay was written in 2003, but seems more relevant than ever. How did the University of Florida respond to an epidemic in the early 20th century?...
Hidden Meanings in a Second Seminole War Pamphlet
My first acquaintance with the plight of Mary Godfrey came a few years back when I was researching literature produced during the Second Seminole War (1835-1842). Her story is a “captivity narrative,”...
The Coffey Residency in Book Arts
A look at the five artists' books that were created between 2015 and 2019 as part of the Coffey Residency in Book Arts program at the George A. Smathers Libraries at the...
The 1963 Coral Way Bilingual Program: The First Publicly-Funded Dual Language Program in the United States
Among bilingual educators in the US, the name “Coral Way” is a virtual household word. But what do we know about the real stories, people, and energy that went into opening this...
Learning to Read: Early ABC Books
A brief history of alphabet books for children featuring images and examples from the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature at the University of Florida....
Isaac Pinto and the first Jewish Prayer Book in America
Issac Pinto, recognizing the need for a prayer-book in the vernacular, set about producing a translation which was published in 1766. Unlike the Jewish prayer-books widely used today, Pinto’s version did not...
Baldwin Book Collecting — A Journey Through her Life as a Collector
When Ruth Marie Baldwin first started collecting children’s books in 1954, she had no idea the journey would take her on buying trips all over the US and the UK, or that...
