Oh, Florida! America’s Weirdest State Influences the Country
To some, it’s a paradise. To others, it’s a punchline. It’s actually both, as you’ll learn from the author of the New York Times best-selling Oh, Florida! How America’s Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country.
Craig Pittman is a native Floridian. Since 1998, he has covered environmental issues for Florida’s largest newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times. He has won the Waldo Proffitt Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism in Florida four times, and twice won the top investigative reporting award from the Society of Environmental Journalists. He’s the co-author, with Matthew Waite, of Paving Paradise: Florida’s Vanishing Wetlands and the Failure of No Net Loss, (2009), which won the Stetson Kennedy Award from the Florida Historical Society. His second book was Manatee Insanity: Inside the War Over Florida’s Most Famous Endangered Species (2010), which Florida Humanities named one of 21 “essential” books for Floridians.
This event is funded by the Florida Humanities Florida Talks: At Home! program.
"Florida Talks: At Home!"
Central Florida has become an area of rapid growth. From Zora Neale Hurston to Mary McLeod Bethune, Black women made significant contributions across Florida. Our scholars will discuss the sites and stories unique to Black women in Central Florida. Video | 1h 07m
Two hundred years ago a group of pirates and privateers invaded Amelia Island, Florida in hopes of striking a blow for the Spanish American Revolutions.
Video | 1h 04m
The state of Florida has recently mandated public schools and institutions teach the history of the Ocoee Massacre. What happened in Ocoee, Florida in 1920?
Video | 1h 00m
Art historian, Mallory O’Connor, presents a 'Look' at Florida through the many eccentric images that tell the story of our state.
Video | 0h 55m
Explore efforts to restore Florida’s waterways and the motivations of environmentalists who love and advocate for these water bodies.
Video | 0h 59m
America has faced many crises, from its very beginning as a new nation, to the Civil War and Great Depression, to World War II, the Cold War, and 9/11.
Video | 1h 27m
To some, it’s a paradise. To others, it’s a punchline. It’s actually both, as you’ll learn from the author Craig Pittman.
Video | 1h 04m
For more than a decade, journalist Art Levy has traveled the state, interviewing prominent Floridians for a Florida Trend magazine feature called Icon.
Video | 1h 15m
Stereotypes created during the Jim Crow era are deeply embedded in the collective American consciousness and unfortunately have been internalized by many.
Video | 1h 16m
A rare look at a part of Florida history that most people have never heard of, urban fires.
Video | 1h 17m
An examination of the perceptions of women in popular culture through comic books and how this culture has changed over time.
Video | 1h 28m
After the Civil War, gaining voting rights and starting businesses, African-Americans saw education as essential to progress.
Video | 1h 00m
Diane Roberts will discuss how each new wave of Florida settlers through time has reinvented the state to suit themselves.
Video | 1h 06m
Questions that continue to impact Floridians: Who has the right to vote, what are the freedoms of citizens, and whose voices will be heard?
Video | 1h 18m
Mark Catesby surveyed Florida sixty-two years before William Bartram. This lecture is an overview of the over 200 watercolors and drawings.
Video | 1h 10m
Enslaved Africans brought their foodways with them during their forced journey through the Middle Passage. How African influence what Floridians eat today.
Video | 1h 10m
The fascinating history of Weeki Wachee Springs told through vintage photographs of the mermaids from their earliest days.
Video | 1h 13m
How Florida overcame the challenge of mosquitos, perhaps the most vexing struggle humans encountered in the past two centuries.
Video | 1h 32m
Eastern European Jewish immigrants in Key West in the 1890s delivered weapons to the Cuban revolutionary rebels.
Video | 0h 54m
The true story of how two separate oil tankers split in half off Cape Cod and how the Disney movie about the disaster was made. Video | 1h 01m
