Happy 172nd Birthday, FSU!
Today marks 172 years since the Florida Legislature (then the General Assembly of the State of Florida) passed a bill establishing an institution of higher learning in Tallahassee in 1851. This institution would eventually become Florida State University. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that 1851 was accepted as FSU’s founding year. Previously, FSU’s founding…
The Great Immersive Bake Off!
Hello there! My name is Amanda Brito, and I am the Immersive Scholarship graduate assistant in the Office of Digital Research and Scholarship. I am currently a second year MA student in Art History with a concentration in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies. My research focuses on Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean visual culture with…
Announcing…The Great Rare Books Bake Off 2022!
It is the most wonderful time of the year! The Great British Bake Off Season 13 is currently airing and the weather is finally cooling down here on FSU campus. This will be our third year of celebrating all things baking, cooking, and mixing here in FSU Special Collections & Archives. This year we are…
Tarpon Club at Strozier
Heritage & University Archives has a new exhibit displaying materials from FSU’s Tarpon Club in the Norwood Reading Room at Strozier. This exhibit was put together by Sierria Groom over the summer. Continue reading to learn more about her experience curating this exhibit and to learn where and when you can view it. As an…
Family Weekend at Heritage Museum
This weekend is Family Weekend at FSU! This tradition is one FSU has participated in for over 35 years. The Heritage Museum in Dodd Hall will be open today, September 23rd, from 10am to 5pm for students and their families to visit. Below, enjoy some then and now photographs of Dodd Hall, one of the…
Memorial Trees on FSU Campus
Located between Landis and Gilchrist Halls and Jefferson Street, there are five live oaks with a long and storied history. These George Washington Memorial Trees have stood watch over campus for almost 100 years. In 1932, the United States celebrated the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth. There were celebrations all across the country to honor…
Anna Forbes Liddell: Suffragist, scholar, and Distinguished Professor
Anna Forbes Liddell was one of the first professors to be honored as a Distinguished Professor at FSU. She received the award in 1959, prior to it being named the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Award. Liddell taught at Florida State College for Women, eventually Florida State University, from 1926 until her retirement in 1962.…
Valentine’s Day Classifieds from the Florida Flambeau
Classified advertisements are a form of advertising popular in newspapers that consists of short advertisements that are sold by the word or letter for low prices. These ads were extremely popular in Florida State University’s student-run newspaper, Florida Flambeau. They served as a cheap way for students to exchange messages between friends, offer things for…
Archiving the pandemic: catharsis, trauma, and responsibility
It is American Archives Month, and today is also #Ask An Archivist Day on Twitter. It seems fitting to write specifically about the work of archivists. The Covid-19 pandemic as created a strange temporal space in our lives, one that many of us encounter when we talk about events before and during the past almost…
40th Anniversary of the Civic Center
Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center! The Civic Center opened as the Tallahassee Leon County Civic Center on September 14th, 1981 to 3,000 guests with a performance by the Tallahassee Symphony. Planning for the Civic Center began in the early 1970s, with the acquisition of the 40 acres of…
Bowden’s Legacy at FSU in Images
A selection of images from Heritage & University Archives. Most of these images were created over the years by talented current and former staff of the university. We will continue to add new photographs over the next few weeks. Click here for more recent images from FSU News.
Amazing Grace: Tallahassee’s Countercultural Newspaper
What do you think of when you think of the culture of the late 1960s and 1970s? Hippies? Beatnik literature? Civil Rights? The Beatles? Woodstock? All of those events, movements, people, and art that you might be thinking of belong to a certain period in history: the counterculture movement. Permeating everything from clothing, music, culture,…
Campus Places & Student Spaces
As we return this summer and to a more normal fall, let’s take a closer look at some of the most familiar landmarks on the Tallahassee campus. If you are new to Florida State, here’s a peek into some our historic places and spaces. For more information about FSU history visit Heritage & University Archives.…
Library History at FSU, Part 9: John and Mable Ringling Art Library
Governance of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art was given to FSU in 2000. The University oversaw the restoration and renovation of all four buildings on the complex: the Ca d’Zan, the Museum of Art, the Circus Museum, and the Historic Asolo Theater. The Art Library was established with The Ringling’s reopening under…
Library History at FSU, Part 8: Library and Learning Center at FSU Panama City
In 1972, the University of West Florida was directed by the Florida Board of Regents to establish a center of higher education in Panama City. The center was originally located in the Bay County School Board Office Building and the Gulf Coast Community College campus. The library was housed in Gulf Coast Community College. In…
Library History at FSU, Part 7: College of Engineering Library
The FAMU-FSU College of Engineering was established in 1982 and is the only shared engineering college in the nation. The facilities were remodelled in 2011. It is located less than three miles from both FSU and FAMU campuses. College of Engineering students at both FAMU and FSU learn together at the joint College of Engineering…
Everything but paper: what else does SCA collect?
A lot has been written about our rare books and manuscripts collections on this blog, but did you know SCA also collects all kinds of objects, art, and recording formats? Take a look to learn more about our non-paper collections.
University History and Mythology
As with any person, place, or institution of note, there are a multitude of myths that attach themselves to their histories through various avenues. They can range from fun anecdotes to harmful misrepresentations.
Armchair Traveling in the Digital Library
We’ve all been stuck pretty close to home for over a year now and, I don’t know about you, but I am missing the fun and excitement of traveling. I find myself planning trips and adding more and more days onto a European vacation that has been postponed for two years now. A recent new…
Library History at FSU, Part 6: Law Research Center
The College of Law Library opened alongside the College of Law in the fall of 1966 with a collection of 13,000 volumes. The college was located in Longmire Hall and included offices, the law library, and a shared auditorium. Construction began on a new classroom building for the College of Law and was completed in…
Library History at FSU, Part 5: Maguire Medical Library
The FSU College of Medicine was created in 2000 by legislative mandate to educate and develop exemplary physicians who practice patient-centered health care, discover and advance knowledge, and are responsive to community needs, especially through service to elder, rural, minority, and underserved populations. It was granted provisional accreditation in 2002 and received full accreditation in…
Library History at FSU, Part 4: Allen Music Library
The Warren D. Allen Music Library at FSU is one of the major music libraries of the southeast and one of the oldest on our campus. It was founded alongside the College of Music in the early 1900s. Originally located in College Hall, the College of Music and its library were relocated in 1911 with…
Celebrating Black History Month 2021: A Retrospective
February is Black History Month and at FSU Special Collections & Archives, we are excited to share some of the black history featured in our work and found in the collections we care for. To kick off the month, we’d love to introduce you to Doby Lee Flowers, who won FSU’s Homecoming Queen in 1970,…
Vote!
October is coming to an end pretty soon and the National Election on November 3rd is approaching fast! The University has an important resource, FSU Votes, that may come in handy before casting a ballot. There, you can learn more about obtaining a sample ballot, tracking a mail-in ballot, safety precautions for in-person voting, your…
Library History at FSU, Part 3: Dirac
In these next installments of Library History at FSU, we will be exploring the histories of the several libraries of FSU. This installment traces the history of the Paul A. M. Dirac Science Library at Florida State University. Discussions about a science library began as early as 1961, when faculty recognized the need for a…
Capturing Virtual FSU
When the world of FSU changed in March 2020, the website for FSU was used as one of the primary communication tools to let students, faculty, and staff know what was going on. New webpages created specifically to share information and news popped up all over fsu.edu and we had no idea how long those…
Contribute to the FSU Community COVID 19 Project
Students, faculty, and alumni! Heritage & University Archives is collecting stories and experiences from the FSU community during COVID-19. University life during a pandemic will be studied by future scholars. During this pandemic, we have received requests surrounding the 1918 Flu Pandemic. Unfortunately, not many documents describing these experiences survive in the archive. To create…
Digital FSCW: New collection of FSCW theses coming to Diginole
The Florida State College for Women, in addition to being the predecessor institution of modern-day FSU, was once one of the largest all-female centers of higher learning in the United States. From 1905 to 1947, thousands of young women from the American South attended and graduated from FSCW. These women were, generally, from affluent Southern…
Library History at FSU, Part 2
In this second installment of Library History at Florida State, we’ll be looking at the trajectory of the Library School since its reorganization in 1947. We’ll also be exploring how Special Collections & Archives has grown since its establishment in 1956. As mentioned in our previous library history post, the School of Library Training and…
From the Talisman to Smoke Signals: a student publication at FSU
The history of Florida State University and its predecessor institutions is ubiquitous with numerous and varied outlets for student expression. Student-run publications have been at the heart of student expression on campus since 1906, when Florida State College for Women students began Talisman. The Talisman was the first literary magazine published by an institution of…
Library History at FSU, Part 1
The history of the Libraries at Florida State University traces back over 100 years to our beginnings as the West Florida Seminary. In the 1880s, students had access to both a reference library, housed in College Hall, and a more expansive “university library,” which was located off-campus. The first librarian for the university, J.A. Arbuckle,…
History of the Nursing Program at FSU
May 6th is Nurses Day! Florida State College for Women (FSCW) began a precursor to the current Nursing Program in 1936. A B.S. in Nursing was available through the School of Home Economics. Students in this program worked closely with local hospitals to receive the necessary nursing training, while also taking more traditionally liberal arts…
Collection Update: The Historical Photograph Collection
This article was written by Jeffrey Henley, a graduate student who has been working with the Florida State University Historic Photograph Collection with Heritage & University Archives since September 2018. The FSU Historic Photograph Collection in the Heritage & University Archives at Florida State University contains in excess of 250,000 images and negatives. The collection…
Share Your COVID-19 Pandemic Story with the University Archives
Heritage & University Archives is launching a campus-wide project to encourage FSU students, staff, and faculty to document their personal experiences during the coronavirus outbreak and contribute them to the University Archives. In accordance with FSU’s University Archives Policy, we are already collecting records related to FSU’s official response. We want to also ensure that…
A History of Extracurricular Activities at Florida State College for Women
Considering how long students have been coming through the walls of our historic university, it goes without saying that we have a rich and varied history of extracurricular, student-run activities. At Florida State University, many of these long-standing traditions and activities were established during our time as an all women institution, between 1905 and 1947.…
Black History Month: Notable University History Collections
February is Black History month and for those interested in studying Black History at Florida State University, we thought we would highlight a few of our collection in Heritage & University Archives. Perhaps the most obvious place to look, and one of our more informative collections on the topic, is our Black Student Union collection.…
Vintage Valentines in the Archives
Valentine’s Day gained popularity in the United States with the introduction of mass-produced Valentines cards around the middle of the 19th century. Most of these early cards have long since disappeared, but we are fortunate to have many examples of early 20th century valentines here in Special Collections & Archives. Aside from being a repository…
New Digital Collection – The Talisman
The Talisman was a student run publication that was active at Florida State College for Women (FSCW), FSU’s predecessor institution. The magazine was published quarterly by the Thalian Literary Society and the Minerva Club, the first two literary debate societies of FSCW. The first issue was published in 1906 and it ran until 1914, when…
New materials available in DigiNole highlight Integration statue.
A new set of photographs are now available in DigiNole: FSU’s Digital Repository. The photographs were taken from events at Heritage Day 2004, during which a statue celebrating integration was unveiled on campus. The digitized materials also include a program and newspaper clippings. Notable people depicted in the photographs include Doby Flowers, FSU’s first African…
New Digital Exhibit on Integration at FSU
A new digital exhibit is now available, featuring information and documents that expand on the items currently on display in at the Heritage Museum in Dodd Hall. The exhibit is titled A University in Transition: The Long Path to Integration and focuses on the role of institutional racism in delaying state university integration. It also highlights…
A Uniting Flame: Looking Back on the 50th Anniversary of the Westcott Fire
An iconic structure of Florida State’s campus, the gothic-styled Westcott Building was once threatened by a massive blaze on April 27, 1969. The fire started in the roof above the fourth floor, spreading beneath the sheetrock ceiling and causing intense damage throughout the fourth floor. The Westcott Building housed the University’s administration as well as…
Remembering President Emeritus Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte
With the passing of President Emeritus Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte we would like to take a moment to reflect on his life and his contributions. He has had considerable impact on Florida State, serving the university since 1984 and teaching through this past spring, as well as the political and legal fields. D’Alemberte was a Tallahassee…
A Portrait in Courage at the Norwood Reading Room
This post was written by Kacee Reguera, an undergraduate senior at FSU pursuing a Studio Art degree in Printmaking, Artist’s Books, and Photography. A love for art preservation and the history of our university led her to an internship with Heritage & University Archives at Special Collections. During the summer of 2018, we received a…
An Underwater View
One of the advantages to the location of Florida State University is we’re not so very far from the Gulf of Mexico. FSU first established a research facility, The Oceanographic Institute, on the gulf coast in 1949 on 25 acres on the harbor side of the peninsula that forms Alligator Harbor, about 45 miles south…
Records Transfer from the State Archives of Florida: FSU Presidential Files
This post is part of our series celebrating American Archives Month. Special Collections & Archives also did a Twitter Takeover of the @fsulibraries feed for #AskAnArchivist day so be sure to check out those conversations. The State Archives of Florida serves as the Record Center for Florida State University, meaning they hold our non-current records according to state…
Updating the Heritage Museum
A guest post by Brianna McLean, currently working with Heritage & University Archives on exhibit development. Starting with the institution’s inception as the Seminary West of the Suwannee River in 1851, a new exhibit I’ve been working on for the Heritage Museum follows the timeline of Florida State University through important historic milestones: the Civil…
Working amongst History
Today we have a guest post from Brianna McLean, a student employee for Special Collections & Archives over the past summer. Like most undergraduate students at FSU, the FSU Libraries have always been a place to study, research, read, and hang out with friends. When I first came to FSU, I did not know about…
Another season of sport at FSU begins
FSU is gearing up for another semester to start in just a few weeks. Student-athletes, however, are already back at work. The FSU Volleyball team will play its first match this Friday and the Swimming and Diving teams are back in action by mid-September. These two sports are the last of a long project for…
The Search for Male Graduates of Florida State College for Women
The University Historian at the University of Florida recently contacted us with an interesting research request regarding Florida State College for Women. In his research, the University Historian found evidence that a woman, Mary Alexander Daiger, graduated from the University of Florida in 1920. This is odd because, in 1905, Florida passed the Buckman Act,…
Florida State: Traditions through the Eras
Florida State: Traditions through the Eras is an exhibit that traces back some of Florida State University’s most well-known traditions through the institution’s long history. What we now know as FSU has gone through many changes over the years: beginning as the Seminary West of the Suwannee River, then the Florida State College, Florida State…
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Claude Pepper Library and Museum
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Heritage Museum
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