Older Americans Month 2021

In March of 1944, a 43-year-old Senator Claude Pepper introduced a resolution to designate the second Sunday in October as “Old Folks Day.” While the resolution did not pass, Pepper would go on to devote much of his energies in the Senate and later in Congress, to ensure that elderly Americans retained the ability to

From the College of Nursing: Florida State’s Part in the Cuban Missile Crisis

The College of Nursing at Florida State University has a significant history. Recently, Heritage & University Archives received a new accession from the College that illustrates when the College played a key role in being prepared for a nuclear catastrophe on American soil. The newspaper clipping presented is from the spring of 1961, describing a

A Campus Mourns with a Nation

Shock and disbelief enveloped Florida State University’s campus after President Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963. Compared to the thousands of words being printed in world newspapers, on FSU’s campus, “a silence [fell] at the first heart-tearing announcement.” Students gathered around TVs and transistor radios in their dorms, on Landis Green, at the Sweet Shop,

Pepper and Kennedy

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A capable and dynamic leader, as well as the first and only Catholic president to date, Kennedy was a symbol of the change that had begun to come over the United States during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Beloved by millions