Florida Transformed: A Deep Dive into the State's Evolving Cultural Landscape Back in 1939

Across the wide strip of its upper area, from the Atlantic to within a short distance of the Mississippi border, Florida is at once a con­tinuation of the Deep South and the beginning of a new realm in which the system of two-party politics reasserts itself. Narrowing abruptly to a peninsula, it drops through five degrees of latitude and a constantly accentuated tropical setting, until the tip of its long Roman nose pokes very nearly into the confines and atmosphere of Latin America. Equato­rial waters move up from the south along its coasts, to temper its climate and confuse its seasons; every winter a tidal wave of tourists moves down from the north, to affect its culture, its economy, its physical appearance. Throughout more than four centuries, from Ponce de Leon in his caravels to the latest Pennsylvanian in his Buick, Florida has been invaded by seekers of gold or of sunshine; yet it has retained an identity and a charac­ter distinctive to itself. The result of all this is a material and immaterial pattern of infinite variety, replete with contrasts, paradoxes, confusions, and inconsistencies.

Politically and socially, Florida has its own North and South, but its northern area is strictly southern and its southern area definitely northern. In summer the State is predominantly southern by birth and adoptions, and in winter it is northern by invasion. At all seasons it is divided into Old and New Florida, separated by the Suwannee River. The political thought that controls it originates in a united minority above the Suwan­nee and reaches down into the more populous peninsula to impose the di­minishing theory that Florida should be preserved for Floridians rather than exploited for visitors.

Religious intolerance marked the conquest and early settlement of Flor­ida, but the State has long since embraced practically all cults and reli­gions, and licenses the occult and the supernatural. Yet its melting pot is a brew of conflicting ideas, which enables the native to dictate State policies and politics. And so the Florida Cracker runs the courthouse and assesses, collects, and spends the tax money.

The background traditions of Florida are of the Old South; and though the Republican Party regularly appears on the ballot, only once since Reconstruction days has the State switched from its Democratic allegiance. In 1928, when prohibition and religion confused the issues, the electorate supported Herbert Hoover.

To the visitor, Florida is at once a pageant of extravagance and a land of pastoral simplicity, a flood-lighted stage of frivolity and a behind-the­-scenes struggle for existence. For the person with a house car it is a succes­sion of trailer camps and a vagabond social life. For the Palm Beach pa­tron it is a wintertime Newport made up of the same society, servants, and pastimes. For migratory agricultural labor it means several months of winter employment in the open under pleasant skies; and for the Negro turpentine worker, an unvarying job in the pine woods.

The derivation of the name Florida has not been overlooked in publicity literature, the rhetoric of which has lent itself to a major misconception. Nature, though lavish, has not been flamboyant enough to make the great variety of native flowers and plants notably obvious except to naturalists, scientists, and botanists. Spectacular settings have been devised by man, but since Florida remains primitive in many respects these splashes of color are comparatively isolated and, in some cases, hidden. Swamps and jungles have been enclosed and converted into Japanese, cypress, Oriental, and many other kinds of gardens, to which an admission fee is charged. Here have been assembled extensive collections of native and ex­otic plants.

On the other hand, florid rhetoric has not exaggerated the State's much publicized scent-the perfume from a half-million-acre bouquet of citrus groves. A border region of localized smells, however, suggests that all is not fragrance in the land of flowers. From sponge and shrimp fleets, men­haden fertilizer factories, and the stacks of paper mills drift malodorous fumes that lade the sea breezes with unsung vapors. A neutralizing in­cense, the aromatic smoke from burning pine woods, has steadily lessened with the expansion of forest-fire control, but occasionally there is a pall as well as a moon over Miami from Everglades muck fires.

Attempts to romanticize Florida's playground features have resulted in an elaborate painting of the lily. Coast resorts have been strung into a be­jeweled necklace that sparkles on the bosom of a voluptuous sea; all is glamour and superficiality. This superimposed glitter diverts attention from Florida's more characteristic native life.

The pioneer settler came from the same stock. as the Appalachian mountain dweller, and long existence in the flat pine woods tended to perpet­uate his original pattern of thought. He knew little of life beyond his own small clearing and saw only a few infrequent visitors, until a network of highways left him exposed to many persons in motorcars. This traffic af­fected his economy and aroused his instinct to profit. He set up a roadside vegetable display, then installed gasoline pumps and a barbecue stand, and finally with the addition of overnight cabins he was in the tourist busi­ness.

The highways even mechanized his mountain music. To attract patron­age, he installed a 'jook organ' that would dispense Bronx-composed rec­ords of hillbilly laments at the drop of a nickel. Real hillbilly bands, that regularly come to Florida, scorn the rural areas and become street min­strels in the larger towns or play in bars and night clubs for collections. To their music is added a sidewalk overtone from guitars, zithers, accordions, and harmonicas played by mendicants who follow the tourist crowds.

Ten thousand miles of roads that crisscross the State have streaked it with what might be described as roadside culture and commerce, with each section revealing a characteristic quality. In the staid plantation territory of northern Florida, placards on gate posts chastely admit, 'Guests Ac­cepted,' and tourist camps offer' Cabins for Travelers Only.' Everywhere are 'dine and dance' places, which, as the highways extend southward into the established tourist belt, more and more resemble midways. Vegetable stands add citrus fruit, and then about everything likely to catch the mo­torist's eye: carved coconuts, polished conch shells, marine birds made of wood or plaster, cypress 'knees,' pottery, bouquets made from tinted sea­shells or dyed sea oats, and an endless assortment of other native and im­ported handicraft. Agrarian preoccupations turn from com, cotton, and tobacco to alligator and lion farms, reptile ranches, botanical gardens, and Indian villages. Here and there are the 'pitches' of palm readers and as­trologers; but, to maintain the contrast, long stretches of uninhabited pine woods intervene with warning signs, 'Open Range-Beware of Cows and Hogs.'

In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to pass­ing motorists. Like their white brethren, they sell articles of handicraft and for a nominal fee will pose for photographs.

This concentration of the Seminole, however, by no means represents the extent of their influence. Seminole names are more numerous and widespread in Florida than are the living members of the race. Such names were even more plentiful before the railroads interceded in behalf of train callers-as one example among many, the' jawbreaker' Ichepuckesassa was changed to Plant City. The Indians themselves have made the most of one profitable name. Since they discovered that the story of Osceola is popular among tourists, that fiery war chief has acquired many descendants, and most of the present-day Osceolas display their names along the Tamiami Trail.

Although signboards ruin many beautiful stretches of country, they are, in fact, a significant part of the Florida scene. In rural upper Florida one sees crude notices of patent medicines or of 'Mules for Sale.' In the vicin­ity of St. Augustine a great deal of early history is presented on roadside signs, and farther south the flora and fauna are similarly publicized for commercial purposes. Nearly everywhere gastronomy and distance are combined in directional markers that announce ' 11 miles to Guava Paste' or ' 13 miles to Tupelo Honey.' The name of a popular brand of malaria medicine appears on tin signs attached to thousands of trees, but the manufacturer complains that business has been' terrible' since mosquito control became effective.

The signboard plays an important role in that it introduces the Yankee to the Cracker and quickly establishes the fact that the two have much in common although their customs differ. The native Floridian may offer specious replies to what he considers oversimple questions, but he is likely to be puzzled at the abysmal ignorance that causes the Yankee to refer to orange groves as 'orchards,' sandspurs as 'sandburs,' and sandflies as 'sandfleas.' Neither does he see any reason to exclaim over a bullfrog chorus in February or the call of the whippoorwill at twilight in early March. In his own behalf he is fluently persuasive on the virtues of his particular locality; but the Yankee in Florida has become a roving visitor determined to see the entire State regardless of regional blandishments.

The first-time visitor is primarily a sightseer. He is the principal cus­tomer for the admission places along the road. He learns very soon how far Florida is supposed to project from the Old South by the discovery that a turpentine still with its Negro quarters has been turned into a tourist at­traction and advertised as a survival of bygone plantation days.

Clockwise and counterclockwise the sightseeing newcomer makes the circuit of the State, filling the highways with a stream of two-way traffic. If traveling southward by the Gulf coast route, he stops to partake of a Spanish dinner in the Latin quarter of Tampa, to sit on the green benches of St. Petersburg, to view the Ringling Circus animals and art museum at Sarasota, to admire the royal palms at Fort Myers. Thence he follows the Tamiami Trail through the ghostly scrub cypress and primitive silence of the Everglades, to encounter at last the theatrical sophistication of Miami. As a side trip from the latter city, he may proceed down the long overseas highway to Key West, once the State's most populous city and an impor­tant defense base, but since its recent rehabilitation by the Federal Gov­ernment something of a public curiosity, a place favored by artists and writers, and noted for its green-turtle steaks.

On his return up the Atlantic coast, the traveler may concede that pub­licity word-pictures of the resorts from Miami Beach northward have not been greatly exaggerated, but he is impressed by the long intervening stretches of woodland, suggesting that Florida is still very largely an empty State. From Palm Beach, which has long been the earthly Valhalla of financial achievement, he may detour inland to discover the hidden winter-vegetable kingdom on the muck lands along the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee, where Negro workers harvest thousands of carloads of beans and other fresh food supplies; or farther north he may swing inland by way of Orlando, through the great citrus groves of the hilly lake region and the thriving strawberry country around Plant City; then up to Ocala, where he can look through the glass bottoms of boats at water life in the depths of crystal-clear springs. Returning to the east coast, he inspects the far-famed natural speedway at Daytona Beach and the old Spanish fort at St. Augustine before he reaches the northern terminal city of Jacksonville. Frequently at the end of the tour, the visitor announces that he is never coming back.

His second excursion into Florida is somewhat different. On his first trip, unconsciously or deliberately, he had selected a spot where he thought later on he might want to live and play, and when he comes again he usu­ally returns to that chosen place for a season. Ultimately, in many cases, he buys or builds a home there and becomes by slow degrees a citizen and a critic.

The evolution of a tourist into a permanent resident consists of a strug­gle to harmonize misconceptions and preconceptions of Florida with real­ity. An initial diversion is to mail northward snapshots of himself reclining under a coconut palm or a beach umbrella, with the hope that they will be delivered in the midst of a blizzard. At the same time, the tourist checks weather reports from the North, and if his home community is having a mild winter he feels that his Florida trip has been in part a swindle. Noth­ing short of ten-foot snowdrifts and burst waterpipes at home can make his stay in the southland happy and complete. On the other hand, he is firmly convinced that with his departure in the spring, the State folds up and the inhabitants sizzle under a pitiless sun until he gets back, official weather reports and chamber-of-commerce protests to the contrary. b Eventually he takes a chance on a Florida summer and makes the discovery that the average summer temperature in Florida is lower than in the North; he tries to tell about it at home, and for his pains receives a round  of Bronx cheers. He is now in the agonies of transition, suspected by friends and shunned by strangers. His visits to Florida thereafter shift to visits back home, and these latter become less frequent; but “back home” has left an indelible imprint, which he proposes to stamp on Florida.

An expansive mood is one of the most familiar and sometimes costly first responses to a Florida winter sun. The person noted for taciturnity in his home community often becomes loquacious, determined that those about him shall know that he is a man of substance. This frequently makes him an easy prey to ancient confidence games; sometimes leads to unpre­meditated matrimony; and almost inevitably results in the acquisition of superfluous building lots.

Already something of a solipsist, he becomes an incurable nonconform­ist, vigorously defending his adopted State and indignantly decrying it by turns. He refutes the tradition that life in the South is a lackadaisical exist­ence adapted to an enervating climate. He comes here to play and to re­lax but at the slightest provocation he resumes his business or profession, if for no other reason than to demonstrate that the sound economic prac­tices of his home State will pull Florida out of the doldrums he perceives it to be in. If he opens a shop, the back-home instinct is likely to reassert itself in choosing a name, so that Florida abounds in Michigan groceries, Mary­land restaurants, Ohio dry-cleaners, Indiana laundries, and New York shoe shops.

Along with business and professional theories, the Northerner brings to Florida a great deal of his local architectural tradition. This assures a structural variant to the repetitious designs of filling stations at the four corners of all the crossroad villages and of chain stores along the main streets in the larger towns.

While Florida's tourist population is drawn to the State largely by the prospect of play and recreation in a beneficent climate, the distribution of its population is influenced to a great extent by personal inclination. The newcomer usually gravitates to the locality where his individual prefer­ences can best be realized, and in so doing he helps to identify these pref­erences with his adopted community. This tends to emphasize the strik­ingly diverse characteristics of Florida's cities. For example, there is the commercial metropolis of Jacksonville, with its converging railroads and northern bustle; and, close by, antique St. Augustine, with its historical background and buildings and its horse-drawn sightseeing conveyances; St. Petersburg with its club like foregathering of elderly folk, where fire and police lines are sometimes needed to handle the throngs of Sunday morning worshipers; and Miami, where employees in public establishments are fingerprinted as a police precaution to safeguard the crowds that fill its hotels, race tracks, and night clubs.

Regardless of individual circumstance and preference, one desire seems to be common to all-the desire to improve Florida. But man's subduing efforts seldom extend much beyond the cities or penetrate very far from the highways; and if those efforts were relaxed for a generation, much of Florida would become primeval territory again. In combating nature and in trying to reconcile divergent ideas, the citizen performs a public service, and if the climate, as advertised, adds ten years to his life, the dispensation is utilized to the advantage of the State.