Spring Break!

Meet me in Florida!

In March and April, college students begin to feel the need to ditch the books and escape from classes for a little rest and relaxation. Though there are many notable Spring Break destinations, Florida can justifiably lay claim to being the most famous.



While walking along the shoreline and perhaps splashing in the waves have always been enjoyable activities, the results of such efforts were not really popular until the 1920s. In the Jazz Age, Americans began to worship youth and vigor, as well as illegal drinking and sexual rule-breaking.  Flappers who "petted" while in college could still mature into respectable matrons, and a deep suntan became a symbol of wealth and leisure, rather than a degrading sign of outdoor labor.  The stage for college-age hijinks was set.



Spring Break had its roots in Ft. Lauderdale, which hosted a Collegiate Aquatic Forum in the 1930s.  During World War II, many servicemen trained on Florida's beaches and bunked in coastal hotels.  Some of them returned for vacations, and they certainly shared their memories of Florida with other family members.  The concept of a week-long student fiesta began to boom in the 1950s, as more Americans entered college and the nation enjoyed an extended period of prosperity.  In 1960, a hit movie called Where The Boys Are (starring young actors George Hamilton, Jim Hutton, and Connie Francis) portrayed a clutch of college students having adventures and finding love beneath the Florida sun.  In 1961, some 50,000 co-eds showed up in Ft. Lauderdale to imitate their screen idols.

Daytona Beach, late 1980s Spring Break
(State Archives of Florida)

The arrival of Spring Break students was both a blessing and a curse.  Local businesses, especially hotels and bars, flourished.  A few weeks of hosting crazy college kids could fatten bank accounts and make up for dull months between tourism peaks.  But the students brought problems with them.  Hotels were overcrowded, streets became clogged, and partying went on at all hours.  Drunken, rowdy college students were pests as far as many locals were concerned.  The Spring Saturnalia was a headache for law enforcement officials as well, and over time many residents came to believe it promoted a dissolute image of their city.



Whenever a coastal town became concerned about its press---and hopeful of becoming a more family-friendly destination---city ordinances designed to cut down on the fun multiplied.  Over time, the focus of Spring Break shifted from Ft. Lauderdale to other points on the map.  Revelers took over Daytona Beach and later the Gulf Coast cities.  Today, college kids have a wide selection of Spring Break spots, and the fun goes on around the clock.  But just as before, there is the constant tension between the pleasure-seeking youth and the forces of civilization.  As much as resort cities love the money, they dread the accidents, the vandalism, and the spectacle of becoming one massive drug and alcohol-drenched orgy. Every year the question is raised anew: how much debauchery is socially permissible?



But for all of the negative connotations, Spring Break remains an important pillar of tourism and an essential element of Florida's identity as a place where one can escape one's troubles---especially those caused by professors and exams.

Party time at Panama City Beach

 

You Might Be A Tourist If....

What is a tourist?

The answer to this question seems like a no-brainer, if ever there was one.  Everyone knows what a tourist is!   A tourist carries a big camera and wears ill-fitting shorts, a loud shirt, and tennis shoes or sandals with socks.  He is also likely to sport a big straw hat, a sunburn, and an attitude of entitlement.  We've all seen tourists and there's a very good chance that, at some point in our lives, we've been tourists.  We have seen that tacky clod and he is us!

But when working on Sunshine Paradise, one of the first things I had to do was consider the difference in terminology.  Florida's visitors have been called many things.  "Strangers" was a popular term for non-residents in the 1800s.  Hotels and amusement parks refer to their clients as "guests."  And of course there are "travelers."  That term seems preferable, as it carries with it the whiff of making a journey for a noble cause.  A "traveler" is the kind of person who is sensitive to local customs and experiments boldly with exotic cuisine. She would never pair striped capris with a flowered top.

Technically, a traveler is a person who leaves home for a particular purpose.  She may be conducting business, looking for a job, or scouting for a new residence.  He might be going to an unfamiliar place to study or to do charitable work.  A tourist, however, has no purpose beyond seeking pleasure and diversion.  He's out to have a good time; his trip is unlikely to change his life in any way, nor is he likely to make any positive contribution to his destination, beyond leaving his cash behind.

Yes, that's me, the tacky tourist!

For tourism to flourish, as historian David Sears has noted, certain basic conditions must be met.  First, there must be a population with money and leisure to travel.  Adequate transportation must be available to take tourists where they want to go, and conditions of relative safety and comfort must be assured.  Finally, a body of images and descriptions vibrant and colorful enough to excite the imagination and lure the tourist to the destination must be designed.  Americans in general fit the first condition, and Floridians, throughout their history, have been growing ever better at fulfilling the final requirement, creating a literature that beckons the weary outsider to Florida's balmy shores.

Most Florida tourists fit squarely into a model proposed by sociologist Erik Cohen.  Participants in this "recreational mode" willingly accept make-believe and delude themselves into enjoying contrived situations.  Essentially, they are accomplices in their own deception.  Perhaps that explains some of the forced, rigid smiles one sees in family pictures from Disney World---to have a good time as a tourist, one has to play along with a fantasy...not always an easy job when one realizes, too late, that the fantasy is flawed.

One of my best friends read Sunshine Paradise and told me how funny it was.  Funny?  I really hadn't attempted to write a parody---this was serious academic research!  Perhaps sensing my unease with her review, she elaborated; the source of her amusement was Florida's determination to promote tourism no matter what. Hurricanes, financial depressions, world wars: these are merely setbacks.  Floridians will quickly rally and find yet another crazy scheme for getting people to wear ugly clothes and part with lovely dollars.  I had to admit, she had a point.  And that's exactly what I love about the history of tourism and tourists.  It's built on a foundation of absurdity, yet it is absolutely essential.

 

A Historical 'Trap'

Every Florida traveler knows the hazard of the tourist trap.  Talk to anyone who's been to the Sunshine State on  vacation, and it's likely that you'll hear a story about overpriced food, dingy hotel rooms, and attractions that failed to live up to their hype.  Even those of us who are natives and should know better often fall prey---don't ask me about that terrible 'ghost tour' I signed up for!  But perhaps we can take comfort in knowing that grouchy tourists complaining about being "ripped off" are nothing new in Florida.

St. Augustine Street, pre-Civil War
State Archives of Florida

Florida's earliest visitors didn't come to the territory for thrill rides or to improve their golf game, they came for their health.  Pulmonary tuberculosis---often called consumption or phthisis---was a leading cause of death in the nineteenth century.  The "graveyard cough" was an all-too-common sound, and doctors could do little for its sufferers other than recommend rest and a change of scenery.  Residents of St. Augustine and other Florida port towns quickly hit upon the idea of advertising their "salubrious air" as a way to draw winter guests.  Paying "invalids" could booster the economy of what were then little more than villages.  The idea worked, and before the Civil War hundreds of patients from northern climes made their way to Florida in the hopes of recovering their health.

Just reaching St. Augustine was a nightmare.  The age of railroads was still a generation in the future, and travelers arrived either either by ocean-going vessels or one of the small steamers on the St. Johns.  Travel via the river required one to disembark at Picolata and spend the night in a filthy hotel; one memoirist wrote that no traveler ever willingly stayed there twice.  To continue to St. Augustine required a ride in a stagecoach that either bogged down in the sand or bounced along over tree roots.  "After 3 1/2 hours of this torture," the miserable invalid reached an even more "miserable ferry" that transported him to the Oldest City.

Once in St. Augustine, the sufferer's woes were increased by a lack of housing.  The first true hotels did not open until 1835, and rooming houses often lacked basic amenities such as fresh sheets and teapots.  Guests who took rooms in taverns were kept awake by nightly drinking and carousing.  The only truly hospitable place to stay was in a private home, which of course required a letter of introduction.  When John James Audubon, the great naturalist and painter, visited St. Augustine in 1831 he echoed the opinion of many of its guests, calling it the "poorest hole in Creation."

Health-seekers in Florida often felt hood-winked.  An unnamed consumptive in St. Augustine in 1839 complained that the town was not as warm as promised, and he had been forced to light a fire in April.  The local doctors overcharged for their visits, and everything about the town was "small and dull" except for the opportunity to engage in land speculation.  An 1852 author felt that physicians should be ashamed of themselves for sending sick people off to St. Augustine to die.  A third naysayer warned of fog, haze, and unexpected chills, declaring that the town's reputation as a restorative resort was "better than it deserves."

Likewise, not all residents enjoyed the company of consumptives.  One local complained that the "funereal cough" made every public venue seem like a hospital.  High society went to Saratoga to take the waters, but only "old women and ugly children" seemed to get off the boat or the stage at St. Augustine.  The sick and the well viewed each other as nuisances, and residents complained that the sudden wealth generated by winter visitors made hoteliers "sassy" and insufferable.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

St. Augustine would maintain its reputation as a winter resort for invalids until the Civil War brought Yankee soldiers as occupiers and tourists instead.  After the war, while some people still came for their health, a new type of traveler---one who was active and in search of sports and adventure---began to dominate the scene.  Florida could not cure consumption; a visitor who came to be healed was far more likely to be disappointed than a tourist who arrived to hunt and fish.

But not every invalid tourist felt trapped.  Ralph Waldo Emerson came to the city for his health in 1827.  Initially bored, he soon became proactive---he went for walks and attended court sessions, Bible studies, and temperance meetings.  Perhaps most importantly, he met an interesting Floridian---Prince Achille Murat, a nephew of Napoleon and an all-round character.  By the time he left the "little city of the deep," he admitted that he felt better.

In Emerson's story is a nice lesson for all tourists---there will be traps along the way (in Florida or any destination!) but in order to have a memorable experience one must be open to change, intrigued by the environment, and willing to interact with the locals.  A passive tourist is likely to become a disgruntled one.  A visitor who arrives with a curious eye and an open mind will benefit from his travels, understanding that a few inconveniences or annoyances are a small price to pay for the great privilege of new experiences in memorable surroundings.





Sunshine Paradise: A History of Florida Tourism (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011)

A Dangerous Journey of Discovery

Modern science looks to the stars, and Florida has served as America's launching pad to the moon.  But almost two hundred years before mankind took to space, Florida was still largely an 'undiscovered country' to European explorers and American settlers.  One early scientific expedition left a vivid impression of a natural wonder in North Florida.  It was a daring  and dangerous mission, and its success reminds modern observers of the critical changes that have occurred in the fragile environment of Wakulla Springs.


Francis de La Port, Comte de Castlenau, was the first true scientist to investigate the Wakulla River and the great Wakulla Spring.  A naturalist and international traveller in the Enlightenment tradition, Castlenau toured North America from 1837 to 1841.  His explorations in Florida lasted from November 15, 1837 to March 15, 1838.  Any scientist would have been fascinated by Florida, which was still in its territorial stage.  Most of the land was unsettled by people of European extraction, and exotic wildlife was plentiful.  Castlenau's companion on this adventure was Joseph Delafield, president of the Natural History Lyceum of New York.  Delafield was also an agent of the Apalachicola Land Company, which owned the region, and thus possessed both scientific and monetary motivations for the journey.  The pair was able to muster twenty well-armed men and two boats for their trip to the source of the Wakulla River on February 18, 1838.  The guards were necessary, as Florida had become a dangerous region due to the outbreak of the second Seminole War.

The Wakulla River
State Archives of Florida

The expedition made its way up the Wakulla River, with Castlenau carefully noting the heavy growth of trees.  The banks on either side were lined with live oaks, cedars, gums, cypress, and giant magnolias.  Castlenau spotted a wide variety of birds, including cranes and ducks, and was wary of the fifteen-foot alligators.  Travel upstream was slowed by thick islands of trees, tangles of fallen logs, and the swift current.  Upon reaching the spring, Castlenau took a series of measurements and concluded that the spring was 300 feet wide and 76 feet deep, though his companions argued that it was closer to 100 feet deep in places.  The bottom of the spring was clearly visible.  Castlenau conducted a taste test and declared the water to be pure and refreshing.

Tiger Tail
State Archives of Florida

Following a busy day of research, the team camped along the river.  Someone noted a mark on a tree.  It was the symbol of Tiger Tail, a local Seminole warrior, which must have made the men uneasy.  Throughout the night their sleep was interrupted by the cries of panthers.  In the morning, one of the crew woke to an alarming predicament---a rattlesnake coiled on his bedroll.  The reptile intruder was quickly dispatched, and the expedition returned via the river to St. Marks.

Castlenau published his findings in articles in French scientific magazines in 1839 and 1842.  Since his Wakulla trip, he had learned of an attack on planters not far from the spring.  He opined that Wakulla would be an excellent site for further investigations, once the scientist could work without the fear of a Seminole emerging from the forest to take his scalp.

Castlenau's journey provided scholars with a view of a territory that must have seemed as alien to them as the landscape of Mars would seem to us.  It also reminds us of a natural world that is endangered.  Today, visitors cannot see the bottom of the Wakulla Spring, and few would be willing to gulp down its tea-colored water.  Scientists now must study ways to clean the spring and to prevent further damage to the environment.  Castlenau had to worry about hostilities between native tribesmen and American settlers.  Today, the greatest threat to Wakulla comes from ignorance of science, denial of the dangers of over-development, and lack of concern for Florida's precious natural resources.





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To learn more about Wakulla Springs and The Friends of Wakulla Springs, a group of people who work to preserve Wakulla Springs, see their website at: http://wakullasprings.org/






For more about the early scientific expeditions to Wakulla Springs, see my book Watery Eden: A History of Wakulla Springs (Tallahassee: Sentry Press, 2002).  I am happy to announce that an updated, revised, and renamed book on Wakulla Springs is currently in development with Sentry Press and the Friends of Wakulla Springs, and will be available later this year.

A Thorough Lady: Ellen Call Long

History is made of many things: great ideas, great movements, great moments.  It’s also filled with interesting people.  Not all of them are famous, or maybe they are ‘notable’ only on a small scale, in their communities.  Yet it is often these people who serve as examples of the forces of their age.  Allow me to introduce one such woman.

Her name was Ellen Call Long.  Born in Tallahassee in 1825, she was the daughter of Richard Keith Call and Mary Kirkland.  Her parents’ matchmaker was none other than Andrew Jackson.  Richard Keith Call became a territorial governor of Florida, and Ellen was raised among the “republican sovereigns” of antebellum politics.  In 1844 Ellen married Medicus A. Long, a promising young attorney.  The couple had five children, but three succumbed to disease in early childhood.  Political quarrels between father and son-in-law made for an uncomfortable family situation, and in 1859 Medicus departed for Texas, never to return.  Ellen Call Long was left as a single mother in an age when such a status would have caused gossip and possible ostracism.  Fortunately for Ellen, her father’s fame and prosperity protected her, and she refused to go into social retirement.  The most interesting part of her life was just beginning.

The Civil War period found Ellen managing her father’s estate, the Grove, and working tirelessly in fundraising for the Confederate cause.  Yet Ellen remained, like her father, a dedicated Unionist; friends noted her “occasional bitterness” on the subject of secession.  She was caught in an emotional tug of war. She was a Floridian and a southerner by birth, with a deep love of her region.  Yet she had also absorbed her family’s Jacksonian principles, which made disunion an anathema.  Her son enlisted in the Confederate army, but Ellen’s heart remained with the Union, and in the privacy of her diary she rebuked the South and its leaders.  A woman at the zenith of Tallahassee Confederate society, she could never completely disavow her Union heritage.

Photo from the State Archives of Florida

Following the war, Ellen found herself in dire financial straits.  Not only had her father died, but her extended family became dependent on her.  Ellen used her strengths, including a sound education and extensive social and political connections, to make ends meet.  She wrote books and articles, including scientific works on silk farming and the necessity of periodic burning for pine tree cultivation.  She also published a novel, Florida Breezes, that was a thinly veiled tell-all of life in Tallahassee during the war.  Unfortunately, Ellen’s pen alone could not provide an adequate living for her dependents, and she was forced to sell off large amounts of property and even treasured family heirlooms.  Ellen died at the Grove in 1905.

Ellen’s story would be interesting for her accomplishments alone---but a deeper and more intriguing tale is found in her psyche.  She was raised a southern belle, elite and privileged, surrounded by slaves.  Her diary entries reveal the typical racism of the time, and she was offended when freedmen refused to show deference.  Yet in 1882, she refused to accept the position of Tallahassee postmaster (a lucrative appointment) because it would have meant the removal of William G. Stewart, the African-American man who held the job.  Risking public censure, she argued that Stewart was more qualified for the post and that his race was irrelevant.  Something had changed for Ellen Call Long---perhaps going through the trials of war and economic hardship helped her learn to respect a man who had “proved himself worthy morally and capable intellectually of the rewards of citizenship.”  She would not use her political connections to seize his livelihood. Ellen’s stance demonstrated astonishing personal growth, and her application of “republican principles” shocked her prejudiced society.  Her story, in a small way, offers hope that humanity is capable of positive change.

Ellen Call Long was representative of frontier Florida, Civil War Florida, and Reconstruction-era Florida.  She was a Unionist in a Confederate town, a popular hostess who flaunted social rules, and a prominent spokesperson for her beloved state.  Her life was complicated, just like the times in which she lived.  She may have been famous only in a small place, but her story helps us see the bigger picture of history.




If you'd like to learn more about Ellen Call Long, my article, "Ellen Call Long, 1825-1905: A Thorough Lady" appears in Larry Eugene Rivers and Canter Brown, Jr., eds., The Varieties of Women's Experiences: Portraits of Southern Women in the Post-Civil War Century (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009).

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog dedicated to Florida history.  I've spent my academic life wandering through Florida's past, which is a pretty interesting place to ramble around in.  It's a land of fierce Native American fighters, rowdy cracker cowmen, bombastic tourism promoters, and blissful retirees.  The state is a diverse mixture of people and cultures, and has been since the 1500s.  And, of course, Florida is a paradise, a beautiful country of beaches and forests and wetlands.  Its environment deserves respect and protection.  If ever there was a state that needed its history, that state is Florida.

I've written three books on aspects of Florida history.  They are:

Watery Eden: A History of Wakulla Springs





Grander in Her Daughters: Florida's Women During the Civil War





Sunshine Paradise: A History of Florida Tourism





I'm excited to announce that this year I will have two more books on Florida's history.  I don't have the cover art for them yet, but I can give their titles.

Florida's Civil War: Terrible Sacrifices, will be listed in the Fall/Winter catalog of Mercer University Press.  It is a study of the Florida home front during the Civil War, a consideration of how the war impacted Florida's Confederates, Unionists, women, slaves, and soldiers.  What was life like in Florida during the war?  What dangers confronted Floridians, especially in areas of the state where raids and occupations were common?  How did Floridians treat each other during the conflict?  And how has the Civil War been remembered in Florida?

Upon The Face of the Waters: A Brief History of Wakulla Springs, will be published by Sentry Press in Tallahassee.  It is a major revision and update of 2002's Watery Eden: A History of Wakulla Springs.  So much has happened at Wakulla that we felt a need to update its story and make a call for its preservation.  Part of the proceeds from this book benefit the Friends of Wakulla Springs, an organization that educates the public about Wakulla and other highly endangered Florida springs and wetlands.

Though my research focuses on my home state, I am proud to be a Professor of History at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC, where I teach classes in American history, Southern history, Women's history, and Civil War.  I've been here since 1991.  Wofford is a wonderful liberal arts school, and I enjoy teaching small classes and getting to know my students and my colleagues.

On a side note, I am also an avid Sherlockian and have three Sherlock Holmes pastiche novels: Shadowfall, Shadowblood, and Shadowwraith.  In Shadowblood, I sent Holmes and Watson to investigate a case in 1890s St. Augustine!

I look forward to updating this blog regularly, and to discussing not only my research, but all topics of interest in Florida history.  Thanks for visiting!