The Senator Mel Martinez Papers, donated to the University of Miami in 2010, consist primarily of records created during Martinez’s service as a United States Senator for Florida from 2005 to 2009. Comprised of 89 boxes, the collection includes legislative and committee files, schedules and appointments, correspondence with constituents and colleagues, speeches and floor statements, media coverage, casework files, campaign files, and administrative office records. The collection also includes photographs, audiovisual materials, and electronic records that date primarily from 1998 to 2009, but also includes scans of photographs and memorabilia relating to Martinez’s childhood in Cuba and immigration to the United States. Topics of research include American legislative history, Mel Martinez’s committee assignments, Florida projects, immigration, United States relations with Cuba, services for the elderly, and Florida’s environment, including issues relating to offshore oil drilling.
The collection contains the personal papers of Louis J. Hector, in the form of clippings, invitations, letters, memorandum, notebooks, photographs, and reports. Prominently represented are files pertaining to the University of Miami, the Southeast Banking Corporation, Pan American World Airways, Inc., the Civil Aeronautics Board, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Gallery, the National Humanities Center, and the Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The collection includes a substantial body of writings by George Merrick, known primarily as the founder of the city of Coral Gables in South Florida. In 1916, he married Eunice Peacock, granddaughter of Coconut Grove pioneers, Charles and Isabella Peacock. The correspondence, short stories, essays, manuscripts, poems, speeches, clippings, proposals and plans from the collection document the literary aspirations, as well as the real estate career of George Merrick. His papers also include correspondence, clippings, photographs, scrapbooks, and ephemera from Eunice Peacock Merrick and other members of the Peacock and Merrick families. George Merrick’s close ties with the University of Miami and his contributions to the institution’s expansion are documented through correspondence, newspapers clippings, and ephemera. Finally, the collection includes extensive literature (newsletters and books) from the Rosicrucian and Christian Science communities. Please refer to the bibliography for a listing of the books.
