Reacting to an impression that history is not viewed as significant as other curricular subjects such as reading, math, or science, there were multiple purposes for this research: first, to document the attitudes of the fourth grade teachers in one county in Florida towards the subject of Florida history. The teachers' perceptions of the importance of the topic to and for the students, to the administration, and to them personally was surveyed in addition to the perceived preparation of the teachers to teach Florida History. The second purpose was to ascertain the perception of fourth grade teachers regarding preference and efficacy of their methods; third, to discern the teachers' views as to the effectiveness and value of the available materials; fourth, to determine the amount of instructional time devoted to the teaching of Florida History; and fifth, to discover if there is any correlation between teacher attitudes toward Florida History and the methods and materials that they use to teach the subject. Eighty-eight of the 210 fourth grade teachers employed in the county during the research interval responded to a survey that was part Likert scale and part fill-in. The results of this research were in agreement with the premise that teachers perceive themselves as unprepared to teach history; however, the teachers of this county thought that Florida History was important to and for their students, the administration and them personally. Although the teachers advocated the use of constructivist approaches to teaching Florida History such as cooperative learning, student projects, and role-playing, the majority of the teachers utilized lecture as their predominant instructional method due to insufficient classroom instructional time (only one in five teachers included Florida History in the daily schedule). The textbook was the leading material of choice overwhelming tradebooks, computer software, and videos. Although there was a relationship discovered between the teachers' attitudes and the methods they espoused, there was no relationship between the teachers' attitudes and the materials they employed to teach Florida History.

The Orlando Metropolitan Statistical Area became the fastest growing Puerto Rican population since 1980.1 While the literature has grown regarding Orlando‘s Puerto Rican community, no works deeply analyze the push and pull factors that led to the mass migration of Puerto Ricans to Central Florida. In fact, it was the combination of deteriorating economies in both Puerto Rico and New York City (the two largest concentrations of Puerto Ricans in the United States) and the rise of employment opportunities and cheap cost of living in Central Florida that attract Puerto Ricans from the island the diaspora to the region. Furthermore, Puerto Ricans who migrated to the region established a support network that further facilitated future migration and created a Puerto Rican community in the region. This study uses the combination of primary sources including government document (e.g. U.S. Censuses, Orange County land deeds, etc.), local and nation newspapers, and oral histories from Puerto Ricans living in Central Florida since the early 1980s to explain the process in which Puerto Ricans formed their identity in Orlando since 1980. The result is a history of the Puerto Rican migration to Central Florida and the roots of Orlando‘s Puerto Rican community

No description available.

Historians have studied mental institutions in the mid-20th century; however, few have discussed them within the context of the period's paternalistic social movements and perceptions. Florida's Sunland program provides a lens for studying the parental role the institutions and general public took toward the intellectually disabled. Specifically, administrators saw residents of the Sunland Training Centers and Hospitals as perpetual children, trapped in an "eternal childhood." The institution was presented as a family unit, abiding by 1950s ideals of the companionate household. When the Sunlands proved generally unsuccessful, Florida's communities began to supplement their efforts. The social movements of the 1960s inspired community care organizations and other special programs in lieu of institutionalization. Reports of neglect and abuse at the Sunlands contributed to the community's subsequent perception of residents as "victimized children," deprived of a "normal" life. Such a view of the intellectually disabled continues to dominate discussions of the Sunlands, community care, and "normalization." This study informs a broad understanding of the past while contributing to these contemporary considerations. Research into the Sunland Training Centers and Hospitals, as well as their surrounding communities, relies on subjective sources. The flagship training center, located in Gainesville, published an internally-circulated newsletter utilized in this work. Detailed studies of Florida's newspapers provide the perspective of Florida's community members, including women's clubs and civil rights activists. Finally, articles and books written on Sunland "hauntings" illustrate recent attempts to define and patronize the intellectually disabled. All of these sources point toward a liberal paternalism that dominated discussions of the intellectually disabled in the mid-20th century.

Governments often used the promise of land as a means to implement policy. Whether the land was in the form of a large grant to a successful explorer, or in the offer of a homestead on the frontier, the motive for such grants was seldom entirely altruistic. Most grants contained stipulations for settlement and cultivation because a growing population was necessary for economic development. Rulers of Florida also offered land grants to encourage a particular religion, to protect shipping, or to establish protection against Indian attacks. When Florida became part of the United States, large sections of the territory were already claimed under various land grants made by Spain or Great Britain. Succeeding United States governments continued to grant land to individuals or companies to stimulate internal improvements or to increase population. In the hands of developers, land grants usually had the desired effect, but in the hands of speculators they tended to decrease population growth. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of land grants on population growth in Orange County, Florida.

The purpose of this study was to explore the development of sexuality in relation to one's overall sense of identity. The most popular measures of identity development assess identity in a number of life's domains ( e.g., politics, religion, occupation, values, friendships, dating, gender roles, and recreation/leisure), but none of the measures include an assessment of identity development in the domain of sexuality. Measures of sexuality have typically been limited to measures of sexual orientation or surveys of sexual experiences. The purpose of this research was to explore identity formation and development within the domain of sexuality, but not limited to sexual orientation and sexual experience. Toward that endeavor, a measure was constructed based on Marcia's ( 1966) identity status paradigm and modeled after Balistreri, Busch-Rossnagel, & Geisinger' s (1995) Ego Identity Process Questionnaire (EIPQ). The development of this measure was an attempt to capture a more comprehensive summation of a person's sense of sexuality than has previously been measured, including the areas of sexual knowledge, experience, motivation, values, orientation, relationships, and desire. Participants were undergraduate students (N=121) from a medium size suburban college campus in the Southern U.S. All participants completed an anonymous survey including a demographic questionnaire, our sexual identity survey, the EIPQ, a measure of sexual adjustment, a measure of identity distress, and a psychological symptom measure. Our sexual identity survey had very good internal consistency with a reliability alpha coefficient of .895. Sexual identity was significantly correlated with ego identity and all the sexual adjustment variables. Sexual identity development variables predicted sexual adjustment over and above (and better than) ego identity development variables, even when controlling for psychological adjustment and identity distress, thus providing evidence of incremental validity for our sexual identity construct. These results are encouraging because they suggest that it is appropriate to consider sexuality as another identity domain.

Unitarian preacher and Union Army officer Liberty Billings arrived in Florida in 1863 with the First South Carolina Volunteer Infantry. Billings settled in Fernandina and became active in Florida Reconstruction politics as a Radical Republican. Most ot the rhetoric regarding Billings focuses on his participation in the 1868 Florida Constitution Convention even though he went on to be State Senator and an influential citizen in Fernandina. This thesis examines the life of Liberty Billings focusing on events preceding and following the Convention. In doing so, it argues that Billings' participation in Reconstruction politics derived from his experiences prior to the Civil War as did his transition from emancipationist to reconciliationist. By examining the earlier years of Billings' life as well as the evidence of his campaigns during 1867, his term as State Senator and Supreme Court cases, it will be demonstrated that Billings abandoned racial equality for class supremacy. / by Rhonda V. Asarch. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

Grave markers reflect a wealth of information and collectively epitomize society's historic, social, and economic patterns over time. Despite an abundance of cemetery research in other parts of the country, little research has been undertaken to evaluate grave marker attributes in Florida. The purpose of this research was to determine how grave marker attributes have changed over time in north-central, central, and southeast Florida. Data were collected from ten cemeteries in five counties in Florida, representing the grave markers of over 1,100 individuals. Data collection involved visiting each cemetery, photographing markers, and cataloging grave marker attributes. Attributes analyzed included marker type, marker material, epitaphs, iconographic images, memorial photographs, footstones, and kerbs. A number of important trends were noted. Marker material exhibited the clearest example of a temporal trend, shifting over time from 73% marble to 73% granite. Marker type varied greatly from upright and flat ground markers to a variety of customized markers and vaults. Cultural differences were also noted with in-ground vaults dominating traditionally black cemeteries. There were clear differences in marker style between affluent and less affluent cemeteries, with numerous hand-cast cement markers observed in less prosperous areas. Furthermore, beginning in the early 1980's there is an increase in customized laser engraved markers. Overall, Florida's cemeteries offer a rich history of the state's mortuary practices and further research should be conducted to preserve this history.

This study examines in depth the most common interpretation of the opening of the Third Seminole War (1855-1858). The interpretation in question was authored almost thirty years after the beginning of the war, and it alleges that the destruction of a Seminole banana plant garden by United States soldiers was the direct cause of the conflict. This study analyzes the available primary records as well as traces the entire historiography of the Third Seminole War in order to ascertain how and why the banana garden account has had such an impactful and long-lasting effect. Based on available evidence, it is clear that the lack of fully contextualized primary records, combined with the failure of historians to deviate from or challenge previous scholarship, has led to a persistent reliance on the banana garden interpretation that continues to the present. Despite the highly questionable and problematic nature of this account, it has dominated the historiography on the topic and is found is almost every written source that addresses the beginning of the Third Seminole War. This thesis refutes the validity of the banana garden interpretation, and in addition, provides alternative explanations for the Florida Seminoles' decision to wage war against the United States during the 1850s.

This thesis intends to prove that Stephen V. Ash’s model of occupation from his work, When the Yankees Came: Conflict and Chaos in the Occupied South, is applicable to St. Augustine’s occupation experience in the Civil War. Three overarching themes in Ash’s work are consistent with Civil War St. Augustine. First, that Union policy of conciliation towards southern civilians was abandoned after the first few months of occupation due to both nonviolent and violent resistance from those civilians. Second, that Ash’s “zones of occupation” of the occupied South, being garrisoned towns, no-man’s-land, and the Confederate frontier apply to St. Augustine and the surrounding countryside. Finally, Ash’s assertions that the southern community was changed by the war and Union occupation, is reflected in the massive demographic shifts that rocked St. Augustine from 1862 to 1865. This thesis will show that all three of Ash’s themes apply to St. Augustine’s Civil War occupation experience and confirms the author’s generalizations about life in the occupied South.