The Agrupación Abdala collection contains materials and posters documenting the Cuban student activist group Agrupación Abdala (also known as Agrupación Estudiantil Abdala). The group was founded on January 28, 1968, as a student organization committed to fight communism and to gain the release of Cuban political prisoners.
The posters commemorate special events held by Abdala, as well as the Congresses they sponsored. The information found on the verso of each poster was provided by Edgar Garrastaza and Jaime Guiú, members of Abdala. Other materials include correspondence, conference proceedings, scripts and outlines for radio and television communications, pamphlets, and organizational statutes and by-laws.
Originally conceived and organized in 1925, the Coral Gables Garden Club has served the local city of Coral Gables in its planning by helping create and nurture its many gardens and beautiful landscapes. The club was founded by Eunice Peacock Merrick and Althea Merrick out of a shared love of horticulture and has grown considerably since then and maintained their commitment to civic improvement through gardening. Today, the club is composed of 150 community members who actively contribute to Coral Gables' local institutions and businesses, including providing scholarships and educational programs, as well as assisting youth-oriented gardening clubs.
Their records contain scrapbooks, meeting minutes, president papers, yearbooks, guestbooks, photographs, programs, pamphlets, news clippings, awards, ephemera, administrative documents, and other archival materials, all pertaining to the club and its various events and initiatives over the years.
This collection contains a wide variety of posters advertising events, political elections, travel destinations, organizations, and corporations, pertaining in particular to Florida, South America, Central America, the Caribbean, Spain, and Vietnam.
This collection currently contains several exhibit catalogs, mainly from the Sofía Ímber Contemporary Art Museum of Caracas (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas Sofía Ímber), DVDs featuring interviews with Sofía Ímber and covering famous Venezuelan and international artists, politicians, and writers, CD-Rs, a collection of fliers from local photography exhibitions in Coral Gables, newspaper clippings of articles either about or by Sofía Ímber or Guillermo Meneses, oversized exhibit posters, and digital correspondence and photographs stored in external hard-drives.
There will be further ongoing accruals to this collection.
The historical blueprints and the drawings of UM buildings are important components of the University Archives. The items in the collection are identified by building name, architect, location, types of materials, and date. Materials range in date from the earliest days of the University in the 1920s to current day materials.
