Happy (belated) National Postcards Week! In honor of the week, which we missed during the first week of May, Special Collections is going
local with these vintage Tampa postcards.
From the Hampton Dunn collection of Florida postcards, University of South Florida Libraries
May 15th is World Nurse’s Day, which offers a perfect opportunity to showcase our Gordon Keller School of Nursing records. The training program was founded in 1910 and graduated several decades’ worth of nursing classes. Late, the program became affiliated with Hillsborough Community College and Tampa General Hospital.
Pictured is a photograph of the 1948 graduating class, a 1930s syringe, one version of the school’s uniform, a nurse’s cape from the 1950s, and assorted pins and dolls.
From the Gordon Keller School of Nursing records, University of South Florida Libraries
In November 1963, President John F. Kennedy visited Tampa. Four days after this photograph was taken, he was assassinated at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. This photograph forms part of the records of Sam Gibbons, who was serving in Congress at the time.
From the Sam Gibbons Collection, University of South Florida Libraries.
For our Tampa-based followers:
Join us for an afternoon with Newbery Medal-winning author Matt de la Peña on Monday, February 19th, at 2pm in the Grace Allen Room (4th floor, USF Library). The workshop will discuss methods for incorporating diverse children’s and young adult literature in the classroom and for framing research projects around youth literacy. We hope to see you there!
Reminder! Join us today for an afternoon with Matt de la Peña.
Originally opened in 1926, the Tampa Theatre is a nationally famous historical landmark and a beloved community institution. The theater is a movie palace and showcases live performances, both of which are accented by the atmospheric and sumptuously detailed architecture.
The Tampa Theatre reopened its doors this month (January, 2018) after a large-scale construction project to restore the look of the theater to its original state, which was significantly altered when it was renovated in the 1970s. The postcards featured here offer a glimpse of what the theater looked like during the 1930s and 1940s. You can see the original chocolate brown seating that was part of the recent restoration, and one postcard boasts the ever-important feature of air conditioning in Florida. (Fun fact: Tampa Theater was the first commercial building in the city of Tampa to install air conditioning!)
From the Hampton Dunn collection of Florida postcards, University of South Florida Libraries
For our Tampa-based followers:
Join us for an afternoon with Newbery Medal-winning author Matt de la Peña on Monday, February 19th, at 2pm in the Grace Allen Room (4th floor, USF Library). The workshop will discuss methods for incorporating diverse children’s and young adult literature in the classroom and for framing research projects around youth literacy. We hope to see you there!
Armistice Day was established on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918, officially concluding Western Front hostilities during World War I. This year we commemorate the 99th anniversary of November 11, 1918 with photographs of war efforts in the Tampa Bay area. From top:
A “Liberty parade” on
July 4, 1918 drew a crowd of spectators who lined Tampa’s Franklin Street to
show their support for the war.
A Tampa parade
honoring draftees as it moved along Zack Street on September 19, 1917.
On September 19, 1917,
draftees gathered at the Tampa intersection of Lafayette Street (today’s
Kennedy Boulevard) and Franklin Street for a send-off parade in their honor.
The U.S.S. Tampa,
moored in her home port in 1912. On September 23, 1918, she was sunk with all
hands while on a war patrol in the Bristol Channel off the coast of England. As
the crew included 23 Tampans, this was the greatest single loss the city
suffered during World War I.
The Lithopolis, the first steel ship built
for the war in Tampa, was finally towed out of port on December 1918, a month
after the armistice.
All photographs from the Tampa Bay History Collection, University of South Florida Libraries.
The first store opened by
the German-Jewish immigrant Maas Brothers in Dublin, Georgia in the 1880s was
not successful. When Abe Maas sought a
location for a store in 1886, he chose Tampa, which had just welcomed the first
cigar workers to Ybor City. He
reportedly said at the time, “It’s a waterfront town. Who knows?
It may amount to something someday.” That year he opened the Dry Goods Palace, which became the foundation
for a much larger retail empire.
From the Tony Pizzo Collection, University of South Florida Libraries
Henry E. Cowart was a United States Army service member during the Spanish-American war who kept a journal of his experiences. Included with his memoirs are photographs, postcards, newspaper clippings, and more. This diary now offers a personal and visual look into the events of the Spanish-American war and life in Tampa, FL in the early 20th century.
Cowart, H. E. (1899). Diary.
From the Spanish-American War Collection, University of South Florida Libraries
In the early 1900s,
consumers demanded sanitary food and drink, and even cigars. Liborio cigars were sometimes marketed as a
“sanitary” option, but probably did not differ from its competitors. It could have been a marketing ploy to sell cheaper machine-rolled
cigars as a superior product than hand-rolled products produced with immigrant
labor.
From the Tony Pizzo Collection, University of South Florida Libraries
