The Leonard Albasi/Gill Family Collection contains eight copy negatives and ten copy prints of 1937 photographs of American pilot Amelia Earhart at an unidentified airfield, probably Miami's Municipal Field. In 1937, Earhart made her second attempt at flying solo around the world. Her preparations included a stop between March 22nd and 31st, at Miami's Municipal Field near today's Opa-Locka Airport. After leaving New Guinea on July 2, 1937, Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.
Originally established by W. L. Philbrick with Steve L. Stanfill, Jr., Philbrick Funeral Home served as an important landmark in the early 20th century, offering premium funeral services to the citizens of South Florida. It has since then been renamed to Philbrick-Stanfill Funeral Home and then Stanfill Funeral Home. This collection contains funerary records and burial information for those whose memorial services were performed under the original Phibrick Funeral Home leadership.
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.
Dr. George W. O'Connor was a criminal justice professor at the University of Miami, also active with the Center for Urban Studies. He also served as director of the Professional Standards Division of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
The George W. O'Connor Papers consist of documents pertaining to his work in both academia and in the public sector. Many of the papers are concerned with criminal justice, firearms control, court structure and operation, local Floridian court systems, and correctional institutions.
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.
Dr. Robert M. Levine (1941-2003) was the Gabelli Senior Scholar in the Arts and Sciences, Director of Latin American Studies, and professor of history at the University of Miami. Throughout his career, Dr. Levine exhibited a strong interest in Brazilian cultural and political history, Jewish Diasporas in Latin America, Cuban history, and Latin American history in general. His papers, donated to the University of Miami, reflect all of these interests in the form of video cassettes, periodicals, clippings, photographs, photocopies, notebooks, microfilm, microfiche, articles, and other materials.
Included in the collection are photocopies of a collection of records from the Jewish community of Curaçao in the 18th century; production materials and photographs pertaining to Dr. Levine's "Hotel Cuba" documentary on the Jewish Diaspora in Cuba; a dozen reels of microfilms of Brazilian newspapers from the 1930s; notes, photographs, and documentation from Dr. Levine's research on the Vargas period in Brazil; and two large, hand-drawn maps indicating Jewish establishments in the major commercial district of Old Havana during the pre-1959 period.
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.
