PROJECT SUMMARY “Pioneer Days in Florida
PROJECT SUMMARY “Pioneer Days in Florida: Diaries and Letters from Settling the Sunshine State, 1800-1900” The George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, propose a two-year project titled “Pioneer Days in Florida” that will digitize 36,530 pages of diaries and letters describing frontier life in Florida from the end of the colonial period to the beginnings of the modern state. These first-hand accounts, comprising some of the rarest and most fragile materials in the UF Special Collections, document the experiences and conflicts of native peoples, settlers, soldiers, and travelers during the turbulent 1800s. The project will digitize all 19th century materials from the Florida Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection (14 collections of family papers, 134 volumes of diaries and memoirs representing 40 different writers, and 240 folders of additional letters, reports, and sketches). Materials date between 1784 and 1912 (bulk 1800-1900) and were selected to encompass the earliest set of family papers (1784-1909), the earliest woman’s diary (1811-1812) and the latest run of diaries from the end of the 19th century (1877-1912). Florida Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection (19th Century Manuscripts) Type of Papers Extent Exclusions Pages Diaries & 134 bound volumes, 1811-1912 3,189 blank pages with no 22,095 Journals (25,284 pages) text or marks Family Papers 14 collections, 19 boxes, 1784-1909 Excludes receipts/accounts 10,370 Miscellaneous 240 folders comprising letters and 4,065 Collection other papers, 1804 to 1901 Imaging will be completed in the Digital Library Center (DLC), a unit of the Smathers Libraries. Associated METS/MODS metadata will incorporate existing descriptive data, imported and repurposed from current MARC records, EAD finding aids, and online databases.
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