Michael J. Maxwell was an architectural consultant whose firm, Michael Maxwell Associates, Inc., consulted the city of Opa-locka in the mid-80s on appraisal and restoration matters. This culminated in a Master Plan for the Restoration of Historic Opa-Locka City Hall, and a Nomination Proposal of several historical sites in Opa-Locka to the National Register of Historic Places. These two documents, as well as the planning materials, are held in the Michael J. Maxwell collection.
The collection also contains other Opa-locka related materials. Included are 1926-1927 Opa-locka price lists, a 1953 charter, copies of the Opa-locka Times from 1926 and 1927, letters including a 1926 letter petitioning for the establishment of a Post Office at Opa-locka, a history of Opa-locka brochure and preparation materials for the brochure, and other items.
Henri Verbinnen was a diplomat at the Belgian consulate in New York, supervisor for the Florida Works Progress Administration (WPA), and independent essayist. During the years after the Great Depression, he wrote a number of essays and letters on New Deal unemployment and relief policies. The collection contains letters, notebooks, drafts, essays, reports, memorandums, statistical reports, sketches, photographs and clippings.
A collection of books, photographs, scrapbooks, audio-visual and printed materials about the American novelist Carson McCullers. The research files were compiled by McCullers biographer and literary critic Virginia Spencer Carr.
This collection contains six stereographs (stereo-view photographs) of the construction of the Panama Canal dated 1912-1913, and three cassette tapes of news commentary regarding the 1977 Panama Canal Treaty between Panama and the United States of America.
This collection contains audio cassettes and sound reels with transcripts of interviews of South Florida personalities by Polly Redford for her book The Billion-Dollar Sandbar: A Biography of Miami Beach (1970).
Evelyn Wilde Mayerson was an associate professor of English at the University of Miami and the director of its English composition program. She was also a published novelist and playwright. Her papers consists primarily of typescripts, galleys and research files.
The Thomas G. Ennis collection contains 41 letters written to George Thompson from 1834 to 1838, largely concerned with business matters pertaining to iron forges; a 1929 Pennsylvania court record for John Kiner, sentenced for horse theft; a 1828 copy of appropriation for state penitentiary, Philadephia; several 19th century almanacs; and a number of 19th century newspapers, including one replica of the Saturday April 15, 1865 issue of the New York Herald, the day Abraham Lincoln's assassination was announced.
The Jamaica Manuscripts Collection contains 20 documents, most of which concern Jamaica in a variety of ways (others are regarding the British West Indies at large). Included, among other things, are plantation records, correspondence, journals, official documents such as power of attorney documents and affidavits, notes on the climate of Jamaica, and Spanish reports on English possessions. Some of these are originals, where others are later 20th century documents about Jamaica or typescripts of letters.
The Lillian Frow Peacock & Eunice Peacock Photograph Collection primarily depicts the earliest settlers of Coconut Grove and Miami. The collection includes portraits of the Peacocks, the Frows, and other families, as well as historically notable places such as the Peacock Inn and the Coconut Grove School. Box 2 includes a handcrafted menu from the first Biscayne Bay Yacht Club dinner at the Peacock Inn in 1891. The photograph album in box 4 includes portraits of the Peacock's English relations as well as a few of their Coconut Grove and Miami neighbors.
The short-lived Confederate States of America produced more than 7,000 books, pamphlets, broadsides, maps, pieces of sheet music, pictures, and periodicals. These publications are known as Confederate imprints. The University of Miami Libraries holds over 700 individual imprints, most of which are legislative acts, political pamphlets, bills, reports, and military documents.
Captain Price was a commercial airline pilot with Pan American World Airways for 32 years, and his records contain materials that span from 1940s-1990s.
The Franklin Q. Brown Papers consist primarily of letters written by railroad executive Brown in 1898 while he served as colonel of the Florida State Militia during the Spanish-American War. The collection also contains clippings, photographs, and a dinner menu.
The John Moultrie Collection contains the following three items:
(1) A sales report titled "Copy of Sales of Effects of Estate of John Moultrie" dated 1772. The commodities sold range from a plantation titled Goose Creek to slaves to "bush corn & peas."
(2) A 1786 letter addressed to a Lord Hawke. In this, Moultrie apologizes for having to leave London early and missing an engagement with Hawke, and asserts his gratitude to Hawke on behalf of the people of East Florida.
(3) A leaf excerpt of a letter, chronicling the fate of the British people living in East Florida after the American revolution. The leaf begins: "...about the time or just before the revolt of the Americas the governor of East Florida secured the Kings order restraining him from any further grants of land in the usual manner and terms, and ordering all the vacant lands in the province to be surveyed, advertised, & laid out in certain tracts and to sell them at public sale at certain periods - giving public notice thereof. This of course could not accommodate with lands those unfortunate people who were obliged to fly from their homes in the neighboring colonies on behalf of their attachment to Great Britain, into East Florida held out as a place of refuge by proclamation in consequence of his Majesties instructions to his governor."
The collection also contains typescripts of these documents, and a photocopy of an image of Moultrie.
The Carlos Surinach collection contains a bound, autographed photocopy of the score to Symphonic Melismas by composer Carlos Surinach. Symphonic Melismas had its world premiere at the Festival Miami of 1993, sponsored by the University of Miami School of Music. Also included is a photograph of Surinach, two copies of the 1993 program, and a photocopy of a biography of Surinach.
The Leo Price Collection contains a single scrapbook compiled by Leo Price which chronicles the story of the Bonus Expeditionary Forces, an assemblage of approximately 43,000 protesters - some 17,000 of which were World War I veterans and their families - who marched on Washington in 1932 under the encouragement of retired U.S.M.C. Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler. The veterans, many of whom had been out of work since the beginning of the Great Depression, demanded immediate cash payment of Service Certificates granted to them eight years earlier via the Adjusted Service Certificate Law of 1924. The march was suppressed by the U.S. army under the leadership of Douglas MacArthur and George S. Patton.
The scrapbook tells the story by means of newspaper clippings, photographs, and a piece of fabric.
Dr. Charles A. Bicking was an award-winning mechanical engineer active in the fields of Industrial Engineering, Industrial Statistics, Engineering Statistics, Operations Research, and Quality Control. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Techology, Bicking has held numerous posts as an engineer, consultant, and lecturer in a number of countries. Bicking also published and presented dozens papers in the above fields. Bicking was an official U.S.A. delegate for the 1953 session of the International Statistical Institute in Rome. He won the ASTM Award of Merit in 1962. Some of the organizations, corporations, and associations that Bicking worked with include the American Society for Quality Control, the American Statistical Assocation, A.S.Q.C., Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry, White Sands Missile Range, Carborundum Company, Hercules Powder Company, NASA, Nashua Corporation, Tracor Jitco, the American Society for Testing and Materials, and the Control Data Corporation.
The Charles Bicking Papers contains documents spanning across the entirety of Dr. Bicking's career, as described above.
The Bertha Aldrich collection contains 2 letters and a manuscript of a book entitled " Florida Sea Shells," published by Norman S. Berg in 1936. The text offers scientific information and practical advice for the study of marine life, the identification of seashells along Florida beaches, and caring for shell collections.
Alfred Reed was a composer and conductor who later became a professor and music director at the University of Miami. The Alfred Reed Papers contains condensed scores, full scores, conductor and scores of J. S. Bach's music, all by Alfred Reed. Also included is an autographed score by Brazilian composer Hector Villa-Lobos.