Rough Draft

For my Rough Draft, I plan to outline the main sections of my research project. The first section will be a general outline of the paper, describing the conflict between Ohio Wesleyan and Rollins College regarding the 1947 Homecoming Football game. Next I will go into detail about Hamilton Holt's address to the school which occurred the day before the game was scheduled to take place. Finally, I plan to go into the letters received by Hamilton Holt to represent the aftermath of the incident, this part will include newspaper articles and letters Holt wrote back to Alumni.

paper writing

Well, the rough draft is due on Friday and I'm finally beginning to piece things together in paper format. So far I've discussed the Symphony Orchestra of Central Florida at Winter Park and the proposal, construction, and broadcasts of WPRK. The next thing I'm going to do is edit the transcript of my interview with Clyde Hall and begin to describe the average black Winter Park citizen's musical experience in the town. From there I'll talk about the depression's effect on the musical scene of Winter Park, and I also will discuss the traveling entertainment that would come, including vaudeville shows and the circus. As you can see, my paper has moved from a strict focus on music to a focus on entertainment in general, with a focus on music. I'm also hoping to get an interview with Dr. Sinclair (the head of the music department) to get some sense of the history of music at Rollins College specifically, and especially keeping in mind that Rollins had a great effect on music in Winter Park in general.

I spent a while at the museum recently, and watched Marianne give a presentation on the general history of Winter Park to a local group of business owners. She had some great pictures of the depression and of the great citrus freeze in the late 1920s. I didn't learn much but I did enjoy the pictures.

Busy Week

My flight home last night was delayed and I didn’t get in until after twelve… but I wrote this on the plane I hope it’s not too late…

Last week and this week are both jam-packed with things to do. Last week was our second test, and this week is going to be busy as well finishing my rough-draft. Once this next week is over and November has begun hopefully things will calm down a little until finals. We should be getting our tests back soon; they are always difficult to prepare for in that there is so much information to go over. My dad is always especially curious about my grades in history, as you know by now he is a history buff. My rough draft has been difficult to get started, and it is a lot harder and more time consuming than I had expected, but I will certainly get it done! That is one major thing that will make me feel a lot better once I finish it, as it has been hanging over my head for a while! As you know, I am transferring next semester. One school which I am thinking about attending is primarily a teaching school, and I am thinking about becoming a high school history teacher. Not exactly related to class, but something that I have been thinking about.

Thoughts on the second test

The test we took in class last week was mostly what i expected. It was very similar to the last test only covering more topics. I studied a lot for this test, as i didn't perform as well as i wish i had on the first one. I think that i did better on the second one partly because i knew what to expect, and partly because i put more time in studying. In fact, I studied all night.. I think that staying up all night may have been a stupid thing to do because i have never been particularly good at all nighters. During the test i was in sort of a history-trance if that makes any sense and my mind was so bogged down with information that i began to become forgetfull. I thought it was interesting how the test covered five chapters of material however, the essay question focused mostly on the progressive era. Unfortunatley for me, the progressive era is one that i've always struggled with, however i do feel much more confident about my understanding of the period now. Regardless of what happens on the test, Im glad that my broader picture of history is expanding because that is the reason i took a history class to begin with, because i enjoy history and find it very interesting. Overall thoughts, was that the test was a positive for me

Langford Hotel Outline

I wasn't entirely sure if I was required to post this week or not, so I decided to post just in case. As of now, I have many sources on the Langford Hotel, both primary and secondary. I begun my outline over fall break and, although I have not completed it, the research and facts are finally beginning to fall into place. I hope to have the outline finished sometime this week, hopefully by the end of the week, so that I will be in a good place to write my paper this next weekend. I might stop by the Olin Library Archives later on in the week to gather a few more resources, although I feel quite confident with the sources that I already have and further research may not be needed. 

Well, I wasn't sure if we were supposed to post this week or not, so I decided to err on the side of caution. At this point, I have information regarding Moon's entire life. At this point, I am basically amassing different documents that regard the same topic, to get more than one point of view. One document about his first marriage might have missed out on some details, and i want to be as thorough as possible. The next step, of course, is to write the paper. I plan to have a rough draft finished by this weekend, so that I don't put it off to the last minute.

Women's Tennis at Rollins in the 1940's

After writing my first draft, I have realized that I need to pay closer attention to formatting, especially citing. After writing so many blogs about my topic, it made the organization of the draft a lot simpler, however there is still much to improve on.

This past week in class has been interesting, considering our current film assignment. I am excited to watch all of these films and am curious as to what my group will have to say about them. I have not seen many older movies so this is definitely a cool assignment which I am looking forward to completing!

Almost Finished Researching

With way too many sources spanning over sixty years, I have finally begun to approach the end of my research and I have noticed something very interesting: it wasn't until Universal Studios showed up in Orlando that Disney began to actually become involved with the area outside its Reedy Creek property.  In the 1990s, the Disney Company started to get the people of the Central Florida area excited about Disney by reaching out to help in community projects, giving high school dropouts jobs, allowing its projects to be reviewed by Orange and Osceola counties, and trying to get to feel as excited about Disney as they were when the park first opened.  It seems that all of these "community outreach projects" all occur when Disney wants something though; in the 1990s, it was for Celebration, Downtown Disney, Animal Kingdom, and more hotels and roadway projects while in the new millennium, it's been mostly about recreating that special magic Disney and Central Florida used to have; it's by doing things like allowing its name to be on the children's hospital in downtown Orlando that Disney hopes to return to the days when what happened inside its borders were for it to know only.

Studying

Right now I'm sitting in the library studying for the exam. I've been in the library since about 6:00 studying. I had trouble on the first test because I spent too much time on the key terms and didn't leave enough time for the essay. That is one problem that I think i've solved because i'll simply do the essay first tomorrow. 5 chapters is a lot of material, and Im trying to concentrate on the big picture and large topics first, then analyzing and gathering small details after. Needless to say, I'm pretty nervous about the exam. I plan on staying in the library all night studying if I can stay awake. I don't know if this is a great idea because i don't want to be exhausted for the test, however I want to make sure I know the chapters really well. On the first exam, Professor Chambliss commented that i did not give a good enough explanation of the events covered. Also, that I did not address all of the issues needed with supporting facts. Part of this, I feel was due to poor time management on my part, and also that my method of studying was not as good as it could have been. I wouldn't consider my studying method cramming, because i've read the chapters before, and i have studied for the exam on previous days. Yet, I feel that all night in the library would be considered cramming. Im not really sure, however, I think that I'm better off, and more confident with a strong understanding of the material. Regardless, My time in the library is only getting started and needless to say I'm really nervous because this exam is worth 15% of our grade, and having not done as well as i would have liked on the first exam, its so important that i do well tomorrow.

Continued Research

While some of you are saying that you are having a hard time finding information on your topics, I am struggling with so much stuff to go through, it’s overwhelming. My topic, tourism, is pretty broad and it has taken me awhile to figure out what angle I want to take with it. Most of the documents that I have found in the archives have been brochures, which are helpful, but after reading ten of them all relating to the same decade, they get a bit repetitive. Newspaper ads and articles I have found to be helpful, in the since that it keeps me from getting caught up in information from a certain hotel or decade. I ended up making a time line to help organize the information, and I found it interesting to see how the economy reacted to events occurring not only outside of Winter Park, but also outside the state of Florida. Winter Park residents may not of had yellow fever, but the epidemic kept tourists away. Events occurring in the north that had no relation to Winter Park were still injuring the local economy, northerners were the ones that filled the hotels, and without them business would dwindle.

Studying for test...

Taking a little break from studying to blog, unfortunately I don't have much to write besides that I am studying for the test which I have been focusing on preparing for, for longer than I would like to admit! Right now I am working on defining the key terms in the last couple of pages for each chapter and also going over the focus questions and re-reading the articles which we were assigned to read. Hopefully this preparation will pay off. My dad called today while I was studying, and as he loves history was curious about what we were going over. When I told him, he wanted me to ask him some questions to see if he knew the answers; he always knows the answers. I think that maybe he just likes showing off that he is so much smarter than I am! Next week I plan to do some research at the Womens Club of Winter Park. I know that they have a collection of archives and hopefully will have some information that I can use in my project. A short post this week so I can finish up studying and get to bed!

Misrepresenting the actsF

Despite the fact that I had resolved to do this early this week, I still forgot about it until the last minute. This week, as you all know, we went to the archives to research the paper. I had already gone through all the documents that they have related to Bucklin Moon, so this time I was able to delve deeper into what the documents really were. One thing that I discovered was that there were many problems with donating the papers in 2002, including the papers being misplaced in the library for a short amount of time. This is not really relevant to the paper, but it was an interesting fact that I thought I would share.

More relevant to my paper, I found many things, letters, memoirs, etc., that regarded Moon's love life. He was married three times and had three children, which made for many schisms. His memoirs actually detailed his romance with his third wife before they got married. This problem also carried on after his death. A few years ago, a Rollins professor held a lecture on Moon's life. In his research for the lecture, he only interviewed Moon's last wife, so many of the facts of his early years were incorrect. Also, he never mentioned the first wife and only mentioned two of his children, even incorrectly stating one of the names. Moon's Daughter was, needless to say, perturbed by this and wrote a letter to the President of the school. I'm pretty sure that this will end up in my paper.

Well, that's all for this week. Good luck to everyone on tomorrow's exam.

PRE-HISTORY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA

This week i continued working with the same author Julian Granberry. He has done a significant amount of research on the topic of the pre-settlement of Central Florida. He is fascinated with the language of the Native Americans and explains how they communicated with each other. He states, "But you had people from different tribes, they had to take a word from my language and your language and the owners language, the masters language,what ever, put them all together. And out of this comes a --what's called a creolized or a traders language." ( Pg 19, Granberry speech). He has done in depth research in communication the Native Americans had to experience because many languages were unfamiliar to different tribes.
Also in the archive section i found another source that will help my research paper. There is an area that is called Osceola, it is named after the famous seminole chief who is believed to have had his camp here, overlooking the lake which bears his name.

still researching

this week I continued my research on looking into winter park's intellectual community in the early 1900's. I looked at old photos of winter park and found more people that contributed to winter park. these people gave rollins college money to put on performances and build art structures. these contributions caught the attention of many winter park residents and encouraged them to donate what they could to the cause. I have also been studying for our test on monday and I hope to do well on it. 

Letters to Holt

Continuing research on my topic of the 1947 Rollins Homecoming Football Game, I found a great deal of information this past Friday. Apparently, Hamilton Holt received quite a bit of backlash regarding his decision to cancel the game. One alumni took great offense to Holt's proclamation as he wrote: "If Prejudice is the child of ignorance, and if such ignorance can dictate the policy of an institution of learning, what, then is the function of education? Is education to be turned into a mere commercial venture, devoid of ideals and subject to the whims of a bigot?" this alumni went on to say that Holt's apology published in the Orlando Sentinel was inadequate, and proceeded to sign the letter "Shamefully, An Alumnus." Although the majority of letters I discovered were negative responses to Holt's cancellation of the game, a few did not.

Langford's Problem in Daytona and the Zoo

I was able to conduct quite a bit more of research while at the Olin Library Archives. I discovered that Langford was involved in a heated battle with the state commission authorities in the early 70s. Langford, much to the dismay of many Florida residents and authorities, had begun construction of a seawall in Daytona Beach. The whole situation is bizarre and, more importantly, ironic because Langford himself tended to be a staunch pro-environment person, as evidenced by the animal sanctuary at the Langford Hotel. This led me to research more into the bird sanctuary, which was supposedly located next to the pool. The sanctuary had three small alligators, monkeys, owls, peacocks, and several rare species of birds. I even found out that a small break had escaped from the zoo and onto the streets of Winter Park. My information and research is all beginning to come together.

This week I was able to find more on the real estate in Winter Park. I read a really good article that gave me a lot of information about how the creation of Disney affected the urban sprawl in the central Florida area. I also was able to find more about the general housing units in Winter Park. From researching in the archives yesterday I came across a very interesting article that went into detail about seven different housing developments in the central Florida area in the 70’s. It was interesting because it talked about the income level, to who lived there, as well as the problems that each development had. This gave me good information and definitely helped me with my research because I have been having a few difficulties with the topic of real estate and housing. I will definitely be hitting the archives a lot next week after fall break and start piecing my first draft of this final paper together soon.

Connections

I have noticed a difference in the types of stories told in each decade, now the only issue is finding a connection to either what was going on in the Rollins community, or the overall nation or pop culture or all three. I borrowed a few books on different decades from the library and am marking them up (with post-its). I'll probably start paraphrasing the stories to be inserted when needed this weekend because that is the bulk of my typing, whereas the connections to society and transitions are going to be much harder to find, and explain, and phrase.
I have approximately one article per decade, meaning it would be easy to space it out chronologically, and also it would probably make the most sense. In order for the paper to work I only need one of the stories to connect to what is going on in society and since each article has two to four that is also on my side. I like that my project is half fiction story and half research. It should be really fascinating to read. I only hope that my facts and support are as good as my ghost narratives.

Still Researching

While I have made some headway into the nineties with research, I have placed three phone calls to both the Disney offices here in Florida and Reedy Creek's main offices but have heard nothing back from either yet.  More to come soon...

churches and radio shows

This week I talked with several of Winter Park's churchgoers about what they know about music in churches here. I also talked with several students from Rollins who sing in various church choirs around Winter Park. I'm slowly gathering a lot of general information and beginning to narrow it down a little bit. I'm finding it kind of difficult to find sources other than newspaper articles because there are not very many secondary sources (if any) on music in WP. I guess that's what I'm doing. I found some interesting information on the radio and I'm thinking about expanding my project to include entertainment like radio shows, because they were big for a while and I feel like they had some interesting impacts.

Letters to Rollins

This week, in my further research on Bucklin Moon, I discovered a large collection of letters between Bucklin Moon and the president of Rollins College, at the time. It seems that Moon was attempting to institute a class that discussed how fiction helped influence the world. Moon himself was a perfect example of how fiction helped change the world, since he wrote about the opression of African Americans in the US. He was turned down, however, because the board beleived that his curriculum was too close to other classes that the school already had, and didn't want to pay another professor to teach the same things. As a little back note, Moon went to Rollins College for college, and lived in Winter PArk for most of his life. I'm not sure how I will put this into my paper, but I hope to find a way.

Baseball/research and midterms

Today as I was watching TV I came across a movie called "The League of their own," which is about an all womens baseball league during WWII. This was ironic for me in that womens roles in the war is my topic for history, and also that the Phillies were playing later that night (nothing to do with history, probably not that ironic). I thought it was very interesting that women created their own baseball leagues which travelled around the country, and became their own phenomenon. I plan on further researching to see if this had any effect on the Winter Park area. I think that this would be an interesting aspect to discuss in my paper. As of now the only accounts which I have of womens roles in the Winter Park area are of women furthering their domestic roles to help the war. From research and previous knowledge I know that females took over predominantly male jobs in order to help the war effort, I think that it would add a lot to my paper if I could add this aspect to what I've found in Winter Park. Also, our history midterm is coming up, and I am getting nervous and planning how I will prepare, not very excited for that.

this week I didnt do a lot of research on my project. I mainly focused on getting the interview sources from the historical museum. I found 6 sources that relate to my topic. The interviews give me a primary source of the people in the town that helped donate funds to Rollins and to Winter Park in general. Along with finding the donors I also learned information about the town and general history about Winter Park and how it looked and what people did for fun. Although this information does not relate to my paper. It was still interesting to learn about Winter Park. 

Research

I have begun to end my research, and begin working on my first draft of my paper. I believe I have enough research as of right now to write a good five pages on Movie houses in the surrounding Winter Park area. I am still working on finding some of the sources I have used in my project. Besides that I really have nothing else to write about for this week. Maybe next week I will have some more information to share. 

A Break from Hannibal Square...

So this week I have decided to take a break from discussing my ongoing research about Hannibal Square, and talk about what we are currently learning in class. I just finished reading the latest chapter in the class text book which covers the 1920's. The twenties, to me, is one of the most interesting eras in U.S. history because so much is going on. It is really the beginning of the modern age, and as the book says, it brought about the word modern. People, mostly the middle-class, started to realize that science and technology were forms of advancement that helped the quality of life. Inventions such as the industrialized car, washing machines, refrigerators, etc. helped housewives around the house, and created more time for leisure and vacation. But while the middle-class felt a rise in the economy, the working-class, which consisted mainly of eastern Europeans and African Americans, still felt resistance from white Protestants. But even through the tough times, the Harlem Renaissance came about, which brought a lot of literature from an entirely new perspective. I don't want to go into all the details of the twenties, we have professional historians for that, but I find the topic interesting and worth talking about.

Interview with Bob Langford

This past week, while volunteering at the Winter Park Historical Museum, I was able to read the transcript of an interview with Bob Langford. The interview, which was conducted in 1981, was written down on a thirty page transcript. In the interview, Langford discusses several of the issues about his hotel --from the initial construction to famous people that stayed in his hotel and his thoughts on them. The interview begins with Langford discussing his family's flight from Chicago and arrival in Florida. Slowly, Bob constructs the timeline of how land was cleared for hotel and how the concept of a hotel in Winter Park was hated by a plethora of residents. I was unaware that many celebrities on the political stage had stayed in the hotel, such as Elenanor Roosevelt. President Reagan even had his fiftieth anniversary at the Langford. Overall, the interview contained many useful points and resources for my paper and I'm glad that I was able to read the transcript. The only problem is that it is hard to interpret what Bob Langford is saying at times since he constantly stutters and goes off topic, but otherwise the interview was great! 

More Research.

One of the many reasons that northerners came to Winter Park was to socialize at its hotels and inns. In the late 1890s and the early 1900s visitors of Winter Park could stay in a variety of advertised boarding houses or popular hotels. The Seminole Hotel seems to have been the first choice for the wealthy elite. After looking at the local newspapers of the time, The Lochmede, a small weekly newspaper that lasted only a few years in the late 19th century, actually printed the names of the guests staying at the Seminole. The weekly ad for the Seminole briefed the reader of their events, such as weekly dances, fundraisers and other social gatherings. Though, the train and news paper helped put Winter Park on the map, it wasn’t until they got a shout out from the current president who happened to pass by. As I continue my research I am interested to see how Winter Park will grow and develop.

sixth post- women's tennis in the 1940's

After reading a plethora of articles, it is apparent that Pauline Betz is the most influential and famous tennis player during the forties. She has won the most national tournaments (5 grand slam singles) and certainly had a reputation for her intensity. She was born August 6, 1919 in Dayton, Ohio and had played tennis since her childhood. Going to Rollins was a big turning point in her career. It provided the res.ources she needed in order to succeed. Her professional tennis career was long lived and very prosperous. After playing for Rollins, she went on to win the singles at Wimbildon in 1946. Eventually in 1965, she was even excepted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. As much as Rollins College helped Betz succeed, it is also true that her presence on the team provided Rollins with a great impression of women's tennis at the school. With the many other future stars that came after Pauline, it is my belief that she is one of the most prevalent players throughout history.

project

During this week I was able to research more about the pre-history of Winter Park through my source at the Winter Park Museum. Julian Granberry has a documented speech about his studies of the Indians that lived in this area before it became the town of Winter Park.
It was discovered that Indians were eating animals such as: raccoons, possum’s squirrels, and skunks. The tools that they used to hunt these animals were small sharp spears and the bowls to cook the food were made out of stone.
The most technological advanced Indians would carve bowls and other artifacts and trade it throughout the southeast. One invention they traded was a little clay ball with carvings of random symbols. Finding these artifacts was fascinating for archeologist because they believe it could have been used as a counting mechanism. The exact use of this tool has not been established, but many still research the possibilities of this tool.The research of the Indians is a unique topic because there way of life revolved around surviving in the wild.

Homecoming Parade 1947

This image provided by the Rollins College Archives is of School President Hamilton Holt as he rode through Winter Park in the 1947 homecoming parade. The event took place on the same week that Holt addressed the student body telling them the reason for the cancelation of the Homecoming Football game. I found that this image really gave me a better perspective on what the area surrounding Rollins looked like in the 1940s. The sort of "typical southern" appearence that Winter Park portrayed in this time period allowed me to see how such a place could harbour feelings of moderate to severe racial tension. I plan to look more deeply into Holt's address to the students, and hopefully uncover some more interesting facts.

Disney Impact on Housing

This week I read an article that talked about the impact Disney had on the urban development of Orlando and its neighboring counties. I found this article very interesting because I learned a lot of the Disney vision that I had not known before. Before reading this article I had the assumption that after Disney was created in Orlando that the urban population and housing would have increased dramatically due to the tourism and opening up of jobs. I was correct in this assumption but also learned about the impact of the creation of interstate 4 and the racial and social divisions that were in Orlando and surrounding counties. Prior to the development of Disney, Orlando was known as “sleepy”. The economy was primarily based on transportation and warehousing. Once Walt Disney brought his vision of a new reality in the form of Disney Land it opened up many opportunities such as jobs. This impacted the housing industry so much because a lot of the people that migrated to Florida and were seeking jobs couldn’t afford housing directly in Orlando so they moved to neighboring towns such as Winter Park. I found this article very helpful and interesting and am planning on hitting the archives this week for more research.

disney

The first topic that I had for my historic winter park project was the first baseball spring traing in orange county. However, as i did further research on it I noticed that it would be hard to find alot of information on this topic that was sufficient enough to do the project. So i decided to change my topic to Walt Disney World. More specifically how the park affected the surrounding area and how it sparked an econimc boom in central florida. Disney world has pretty much put orlando and orange county on the map. When i went to the archives they had a ton of information on the planning and opening of the park so i knew that i could work with this topic. I think this topic has alot more information to work with and it had much more of an impact to central florida then most other historical events.

interviews with ancients

A couple of weeks ago as I was looking for sources in Olin's archives, I came across a mini auto-biography written by a longtime resident of Winter Park, Clyde Hall. I wasn't sure if he was still alive seeing as he would have had to have been at least ninety, but I dug up his address and wrote him a letter anyway asking for an interview. He wasn't a musician or anything, but I figured it would be cool to get an average citizen's perspective on the role that music and entertainment played in Winter Park's history. He lives in Savannah now, and finally about a week ago he called me back. I interviewed him the next night, and we talked for about an hour. It was very interesting to hear the prospective of a black man. He talked a lot about church choir, and about the shows that used to come through Winter Park -- vaudeville, circuses, concerts. He didn't have too much information for me in terms of my specific topic, but it definitely helped to get his perspective. I learned about how segregation played a big role in Winter Park, and in relation to my topic, this affected seating for shows, which schools got better music programs, etc. One thing that stood out to me in our interview was his assertion that it was not the Northern rich people who spent their winters in Winter Park who were the most racist; it was the poorer people who lived in Winter Park year round that gave the black citizens trouble. Rollins, which had people there who had money, was well known for holding events on campus for black citizens. The high school available to black Winter Park citizens was not a very good one, and so he went to boarding school as a day student at a school called Hungerford, which was not very far away from Winter Park. There was a music program at Hungerford, which was sponsored mostly by the rich white people of Winter Park, and popular concerts were held every Sunday. Around Christmastime there was a group of black choral singers who would walk around the rich white neighborhoods and sing carols for donations. Musical programs in which black citizens participated were all self-run and organized, with little funding and little more than a love for music and for music inspired by God. They did not have the Winter Park Symphonic Orchestra, and were not allowed to be members. Mr. Hall grew up in a time when radio was a relatively new invention, and it altered the way that people listened to both music and the news, and it added a new element of entertainment -- the radio shows. Anyway, I have a transcript of the interview and will be using it in my paper. Mr. Hall also gave me the number of someone else who was active in music in Winter Park and who still lives here, and hopefully I'll be able to find the time to call and interview him.

last two months

This last month and a half of school has gone by so fast. I have tried to adjust to the new climate, the new golf coach, and the new teachers. What has hit me the most has been the work load. I dont know if its just me, but the work load is a killer in my opinion. The work at the historical museum isnt all that bad. What stinks is the fact that it is apart of the class and we receive no pay, but I guess it isnt all that bad because we are doing some good for the community. Managing my time has been the hardest thing to do. Being a golfer, I am always running around trying to find a rind or a person to play with. I think that now after this first month, I should be ok and just try to acclamate to the new style of school. The material that we are learning in this class I actually find to be interesting. It isn't all that bad now since we are into world war 1 and will be moving on to the depression and then eventually the 1960s. What I think is the coolest thing about school is the fact that you could show up to class with nothing. I could just show up to show up. Also, the dress code isnt all that bad...there is no dress code. This weekend, I got to see my parents and that was pretty cool. It was perfect because it was getting to that point where I was missing them but it was almost to the point to where by the end of the weekend, I just wanted them to leave. Well, now that we know what college life is like, I think you just gotta put your mind to what you are going to want to do and then just manage your time to get to your ultimate goal.

Bibliography and Research

My research for the project is coming along pretty well, I found a lot of interesting information while spending my hours with Mrs. Popkins. The book which helped me, Chronological History of Winter Park, is actually a very boring book! The author took the time to record everything that went on in Winter Park each year, including marriages, new children, new businesses opened, businesses closed, deaths, jobs taken, new buildings, and every other detail one could imagine. This was very helpful for me though, as it has pretty much everything that went on in Winter Park during the war, and has a lot of information about the war effort and womens roles in this effort. I also found a lot about job recruitment in the archives; many different organizations that could use the help of women with the war contacted Rollins in order to recruit young women who were looking to help.

As it was Parents Weekend, I had planned to bring my parents to the museum to show them where I spend my afternoons every Tuesday. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and did not end up being able to go. I regret not bringing them because my Dad loves history, and I think that he really would have enjoyed seeing the displays and talking to Mrs. Popkins about the history of the area. My parents have been talking about coming to visit another weekend, and I'm hoping that they decide to do so; I will definitley make sure to fit the museum into their schedule!

1947 Rollins Homecomming

In 1947 Rollins was set to play Ohio Wesleyan College in their Homecoming football game. The game had been set the previous season and expectations among the students and alumni of Rollins had been high. The plans had been made however, without the knowledge that the Ohio school would be bringing with them an African American standout athlete and exemplary student alike. This proposition was met with the heavily prejeudiced Winter Park area. The day before the Homecomming game was set to be played, the president of Rollins college at the time, Hamilton Holt, read a speech to the entire student body explaining how the game was canceled. His main reasons for the cancelation of the game were entirely based upon race and reflected the prejeudice of Pre-Civil Rights America. I plan to persue this topic and examine how it's aftermath affected the short lived football program at Rollins.

fifth post- women's tennis in the 1940's

Among the many articles I have found in the archives, one that stands out to be especially relevant to my topic is from the Public Relations Office at Rollins, in 1949. Due to its discussion of how the women's tennis team became so successful at Rollins, it certainly provides a good perspective for my paper. For instance, it says that Pauline Betz and Dodo Bundy were the initial players to be outstanding however there were many other talented girls to come. Shirley Frey, Nancy Morrison and Jean Clark were some of the stars of the late forties. It will be interesting to compare the two sets of players, seeing if there is any significant difference in any aspect of school or the team. During both times, the team had been very successful, therefore I doubt that there were any grave changes that occurred but it would still be worth looking into. As far as school work, financial issues or the controversy of women's athletic teams at the time, I am confident that there will be many things to analyze.

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel Is Getting Nearer

So I have finally made it to the end of the 1980s in the archive as it relates to all things Disney, which means I'm only 18 years worth of files from being done with that section of the archives.  I also finished my book, "Married to the Mouse" and the way Professor Foglesong concludes it has left me wondering what his thoughts are on Disney since his book was published in 2002 so I will hopefully be having a meeting with him this week.  It has been so interesting to learn how manipulative (and somewhat brilliant) Disney has been in playing Orange and Osceola counties against each other for money, how they can decide when to be the government and when to be the company, how they can almost do anything they want on their land, and how thanks to Walt Disney, the area of Orlando is now filled with more theme parks than any other place in the world (I was driving with my parents this weekend and we honestly saw a place called "THE HOLY LAND" and it's a theme park!).  I plan on finishing my work in the archives this week and beginning to decide what I really need to keep.  I also plan on calling Disney's Florida office (if I can find their number) to see if they can give me any information.  More to come next week...

This week I worked on my working bibliography. I found sources, including interviews at the historical museum, that will help me with the improvement of my paper greatly. The interviews talk about the improvement of the community of Winter Park and the people that helped the town through insight and generous donations to the sometimes struggling, Rollins College. Also in the interviews, interviewees talked about the events that went on in Winter Park and the surrounding area that created a tourist source of income for the town. Events such as brass bands and plays encouraged townspeople to get involved in the community and to broaden their own intellectuality.

more updates on my project

So, I have continued to look for sources for my project. I had been having a problem finding secondary sources to support the things i wanted to say in my paper, but this week I found several reviews of his work that helped give insight into his life. The majority of the articles said that his work was nothing spectacular or amazing, but because he was the first white to write about African-American struggle, he gained notoriety. Primary sources, however, have been easy to come by. The archives have been very helpful with this. They have letters that were donated by his third wife between him and many other people, including publishers and even the president of Rollins during that time period. Also, I have found an unfinished auto-biography that he wrote that details most of his life, including his romance after his first divorce. There are a couple of chapters missing from the middle, but I believe that I will be able to fill in the blanks as I go along.

Working Bibliography

My Historical Winter Park essay topic is real estate in Winter Park focusing on the time period of 1900-1930. I was a little concerned when begining to look for research for this topic because it is so specific. I found many old newspaper articles in the libraries archives and they have been helpful so far. My only difficulty was trying to cite some of the newspaper articles because some of them are incomplete or do not contain author, publisher, etc. I have also found many JSTOR articles that are relevant and helpful to my topic. I still plan on finding some more book sources, as well as a few more primary sources. However, I would say at this time that i have a good hold on the paper. I have been constructing a basic thesis on the subject and am looking to start a preliminary draft in the next few days.

New Source for My Project

When I went to the Winter Park Historical Museum on Wednesday, I was able to receive a great source. It is a DVD video in which they talk about the history of the Colony Theater, which was actually located right on Park Avenue. Standing where the theater used to be is a Pottery Barn, but the Colony sign is still present.  Dr. Chambliss is actually interviewed in the DVD and he discusses some of the theater's history. This DVD helped improve my paper very much, and with a few more sources, I will have all the information I will need to make a good paper.

Historical Museum Resource

This week I discovered a significant source for my research topic at the Winter Park Historical Museum. The author Julian Granberry has done a considerable amount of research about the pre-history of Winter Park Fl. He notes that one can retrieve information as far back as 15,000 B.C. because archeological specimens remain in the ground.
It was also interesting to find out the five major Indian groups that existed in Florida before the town of Winter Park was developed. The Choctaws were the Indian tribes that were located in far West Florida; also the Apalachee people were in that general area as well. These two tribes were the only ones that had a language that were relatively similar. To the East, the Timucua occupied all of North Florida. In Orange County the Ais tribe occupied a large portion of the woods. Finally, the West Florida tribe was called the Calusa people. All these tribes were located on the same peninsula and only two tribes were able to communicate with each other. Historians are fascinated that all these different tribes because speak a language that is foreign to each other. Therefore, tribes were not able to visit different regions of Florida and be able to communicate with the people that they met.
After visiting the archive located downstairs in the library I was told that the Indians were forced out of their reservations. The developers did not have permission to take over the Indians land but they chose to do so anyway. This shows that Indians did not have a say to anything they owned during this time period.

Winter Park Brochure

Continuing my research on the real estate aspect of Winter Park and trying to find some relation to the Winter Park Land CO. has been pretty difficult. I have been searching around in the archives and have found a lot of useful information but now I am looking to find book with more information surrounding Winter Park so I can find more substantial information rather then just articles or brochures for my research. Although I am now trying to expand my resources outside the archives this week I did find a really interesting brochure on Winter Park. It is interesting to me to see how they portray the residential living through their brochures to their tourists. Winter Park is described as a Florida Utopia and a place where there is southern climate with a northern atmosphere. It really emphasizes the Spanish and Mediterranean style houses. From reading through this brochure from the 50’s it seems that Winter Park really grew into a beautiful place not only to visit but to establish a home. All in all my experience researching this topic thus far has been interesting to me and I am looking forward to expanding my research further.

New Sources

This week for our class we had to turn in a working bibliography for our research paper. I wanted to find some more sources for my project, so I went to Marianne Popkins at the Historical Museum for help. She and I went over to the storage area for several binders full of personal interviews about Winter Park. In these portfolios there were transcripts of the interviews, and I was able to find three interviews about the Westside and Hannibal Square. Along with the interviews, I went to the archives to find a research paper called "A Window in Hannibal Square" by Fairolyn Livingston, which is full of information about the history of the de-annexation and re-annexation of Hannibal Square among other topics. Also Marianne got me into contact with Kim Mould, who is currently helping me to find sources and information on my topic. So I just want to give a big thanks to everybody for helping me to find all of these great sources, and hopefully I can make a successful paper out of the information!